March 2015 – Page 9 – Spaceflight Now

Weather looking acceptable for Atlas launch

March 8, 2015 Justin Ray

The preliminary weather outlook for Thursday night’s Atlas 5 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral is cloudy but optimistic that the vehicle will fly as scheduled.

SES completes three-satellite procurement with Ariane 5 contract

March 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

SES has selected Arianespace to launch a communications satellite ordered as part of a three-spacecraft procurement announced last month, after assigning the other two payloads for launches aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.

NASA orders missions to resupply space station in 2017

March 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA has ordered four additional launches to deliver cargo to the International Space Station in 2017 — three from SpaceX and one from Orbital ATK — to cover the research lab’s logistics needs until a new set of resupply contracts take effect.

Glitch on Curiosity rover traced to drill mechanism

March 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

Officials are assessing how to adjust operations to collect future rock core samples with NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover after identifying its drill as the likely source of a short circuit that stopped the rover’s movement in late February.

Dawn arrives for the first exploration of a dwarf planet

March 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft slipped into orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres on Friday, ready to examine the largest unexplored world in the inner solar system after traveling 3.1 billion miles from Earth.

Flight Readiness Review passed for next week’s Atlas 5 launch

March 6, 2015 Justin Ray

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and NASA’s four MMS satellite probes passed their Flight Readiness Review on Friday that assessed the progress of work and affirmed plans to launch next Thursday night.

Engineers analyzing short circuit on Mars rover

March 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

A short circuit that halted movement of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is not expected to keep the mobile robot stationary for long, but engineers want to know whether the problem will restrict some future science operations.

Crunch time: Next Mars lander enters final year before launch

March 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

Wednesday marked one year until the launch of a NASA seismic station to Mars, and scientists believe they have found a suitable operating post for the lander as engineers race to keep the mission on schedule for liftoff in a narrow 26-day window next March.

Power system failure likely cause of military satellite explosion

March 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Air Force says a temperature spike in the power system of a nearly 20-year-old weather satellite may have led to the spacecraft’s explosion in orbit, scattering more than 40 fragments of debris that could be flying around Earth for decades.

Liftoff of Indian navigation satellite postponed

March 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

The launch of a satellite for India’s indigenous navigation network has been postponed to resolve a problem with one of the spacecraft’s radio transmitters, officials said Wednesday.