February 2015 – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

Video: Groundbreaking for commercial crew access tower

February 22, 2015 Justin Ray

There was a groundbreaking Friday at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 to start building the astronaut access tower to board Boeing’s CST-100 capsules atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.

Astronauts prep space station for commercial capsules

February 21, 2015 William Harwood

Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Terry Virts floated outside the International Space Station Saturday and installed wiring needed for two new docking mechanisms that will be attached later this year for use by Boeing and SpaceX crew capsules.

Live coverage: Station astronauts wire up new antennas

February 21, 2015 Stephen Clark

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Terry Virts suited up and ventured outside the International Space Station on Sunday on their third spacewalk in eight days to install equipment to help future commercial crew capsules built by Boeing and SpaceX navigate to the complex.

SES signs up for launch with more powerful Falcon 9 engines

February 20, 2015 Stephen Clark

A communications payload owned by the Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES will ride the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket in mid-2015, SES officials said Friday.

Orbital ATK targets resumption of Antares launches in March 2016

February 20, 2015 Stephen Clark

Space station resupply missions launched from Virginia are set to resume in March 2016, after Orbital ATK integrates newly-built rocket engines into the Ukrainian-made booster stage of the company’s commercial Antares rocket and puts it through an on-pad test firing in January.

Launch America getting new access gantry for astronauts

February 20, 2015 Justin Ray

A groundbreaking Friday ceremonially commenced construction of an astronaut access tower at United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 launch pad in Florida, a 200-foot-tall gantry that will add to the future of U.S. human spaceflight.

Engineers finding lessons in nearly flawless Orion test flight

February 20, 2015 Stephen Clark

December’s first orbital test flight of NASA’s Orion crew capsule was almost perfect, but engineers are carefully analyzing 600 gigabytes of data recorded on the spacecraft’s trip 3,600 miles into space to see how future missions to an asteroid and Mars could be improved.

Astronauts, spacesuits ready for spacewalk Saturday

February 19, 2015 William Harwood

NASA space station managers decided Thursday to delay the first two of three planned spacewalks by one day to give flight controllers and engineers a chance to catch their collective breath after exhaustive troubleshooting to verify the health of critical internal spacesuit components.

Arianespace on pace for one launch per month in 2015

February 18, 2015 Stephen Clark

Last week’s successful launch of a Vega rocket with a European re-entry technology demonstrator marked the first of at least 11 flights planned this year by Arianespace to put communications satellites, Earth observatories and research probes into space.

Magnetic field laboratory being readied for launch

February 18, 2015 Justin Ray

A stack of four satellites, each one carrying 25 science sensors and together will perfect the art of formation flying, are being packaged inside an Atlas 5 rocket nose cone in preparation for mounting atop the booster next week.