July 2015 – Spaceflight Now

Atlas 5 team begins stacking most powerful variant for Navy launch

July 31, 2015 Justin Ray

Continuing a run of military satellite deployments this summer, United Launch Alliance has begun stacking the Atlas 5 rocket that will boost the Navy’s next mobile communications craft.

OTD…July 31 and STS-46

July 31, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 1992…Atlantis launched to test the Tethered Satellite System

NASA: Tracking CubeSats is easy, but many stay in orbit too long

July 30, 2015 Stephen Clark

U.S. military radars have little trouble tracking the flux of CubeSats filling orbital traffic lanes, diminishing worries that new commercial CubeSat constellations could generate collision hazards in space, according to a report issued by NASA last week.

Video shows SpaceShipTwo just before fatal crash

July 29, 2015 Stephen Clark

A video released by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane drop from its carrier aircraft, ignite its motor, and prematurely engage its braking system just before disintegrating high above California’s Mojave Desert last October.

OTD…July 29 and STS-51F

July 29, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 1985…Challenger suffered an engine shutdown on her way to orbit for a Spacelab mission

The heart of Pluto in high-resolution

July 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

The icy plains of Pluto resolved by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft stretch as wide as Texas, enveloping mountain ranges and bizarre hilly outcrops in a mosaic revealing one lobe of the distant world’s heart-shaped reservoir of exotic frozen carbon monoxide, nitrogen and methane.

SpaceShipTwo mishap due to pilot error and company training oversight

July 28, 2015 William Harwood

The fatal in-flight breakup of Virgin Galactic’s futuristic SpaceShipTwo rocket plane during a test flight last October was the result of pilot error, possibly triggered by a high workload, unfamiliar vibration and rapid acceleration, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded Tuesday.

NASA probe finds intriguing ice flows under hazy skies on Pluto

July 26, 2015 Stephen Clark

Images obtained during the New Horizons spacecraft’s July 14 encounter with Pluto show apparent glacial ice flows wrapping around barrier islands and towering mountain ranges, all under a haze layer suspended up to 100 miles above the distant world’s frozen surface.

OTD…July 26 and STS-114

July 26, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 2005…Discovery launched on the first space shuttle mission after the Columbia tragedy

Two navigation satellites launched by China

July 25, 2015 Stephen Clark

Two Chinese satellites lifted off Saturday on top of a Long March 3B rocket and rode into orbit nearly 14,000 miles above Earth to expand the country’s space-based navigation network.