March 2015 – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

South Korean satellite launched by Dnepr rocket

March 26, 2015 Stephen Clark

A stockpiled Soviet-era ballistic missile shot out of an underground silo on a remote Russian military base Wednesday and powered into orbit with a South Korean Earth observation satellite.

H-2A rocket achieves fourth launch in six months

March 26, 2015 Stephen Clark

A new surveillance satellite equipped with a high-resolution optical camera blasted into space aboard a Japanese H-2A rocket Thursday, joining a fleet of spy stations in orbit to track military activity in North Korea and other locations around the world.

Photos: More shots of Delta 4 liftoff

March 26, 2015 Justin Ray

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket roars off the pad with the Global Positioning System 2F-9 satellite. Photos by ULA.

Photos: Galileo navigation satellites added to Soyuz rocket

March 25, 2015 Stephen Clark

Twin satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation system were raised on top of a Russian-made Soyuz rocket late Tuesday and installed for Friday’s launch from French Guiana to expand the growing network of spacecraft nearly 15,000 miles above Earth.

NASA opts to grab a boulder, not the whole asteroid

March 25, 2015 William Harwood

After an extended review, NASA has opted to forgo capturing a small asteroid as an interim step on the road to sending astronauts to Mars. Instead, the agency will focus on robotically plucking a sizable boulder from the surface of an asteroid and returning it to the vicinity of the moon for analysis by spacewalking astronauts in the mid 2020s.

Recap story: New bird flies for GPS navigation network

March 25, 2015 Justin Ray

Climbing away from Earth on the power of its liquid hydrogen-fueled main engine and twin solid rockets, a Delta 4 booster successfully launched a new Global Positioning System satellite Wednesday to benefit U.S. military operations and civilian society as a whole.

Photos: Delta 4’s foggy launch

March 25, 2015 Justin Ray

The 721,000-pound United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket launches on-time at 2:36 p.m. EDT Wednesday into a deck of low-hanging clouds over Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the GPS 2F-9 navigation satellite.

Soyuz primed to launch veteran space station crew

March 25, 2015 Stephen Clark

A Soyuz rocket is sitting on a historic launch pad in Kazakhstan after a railroad journey at sunrise Wednesday positioned the crew ferry craft for liftoff Friday with a three-man crew destined for the International Space Station, including two spaceflight veterans who will spend nearly one year in orbit.

Video: Delta 4 lifts off

March 25, 2015 Justin Ray

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket was launched on-time today at 2:36 p.m. EDT carrying a new Global Positioning System spacecraft to advance the navigation network with every launch.

With memory restored, Opportunity rover completes marathon on Mars

March 25, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Opportunity rover trekking across Mars completed a marathon’s worth of driving Tuesday, extending its record-setting exploration of the red planet as engineers installed a software fix to overcome a problem with the aging robot’s flash memory.