2015 – Page 37 – Spaceflight Now

Scientists plan for New Horizons probe’s second act

August 11, 2015 Stephen Clark

Scientists are about to decide where to send NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft next, and it is down to two candidates at the frozen frontier of the solar system to become the most distant object ever visited by a human-built space probe.

Rosetta gets ringside seat to smelly comet outburst

August 11, 2015 Stephen Clark

Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft has recorded a brilliant beam of gas and dust shooting into space from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the most spectacular such emission since the probe arrived at the tiny frozen world one year ago.

Astronauts munch on space-grown lettuce

August 10, 2015 William Harwood

Amid a Russian spacewalk to carry out routine maintenance and inspections outside the International Space Station, two NASA astronauts and a Japanese crewmate staged a culinary first in orbit — harvesting and eating a few leaves of leafy, space-grown red romaine lettuce.

NASA troubleshoots radar outage on new SMAP satellite

August 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

Engineers have so far been unable to restart a balky radar aboard NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive environmental satellite launched in January, robbing scientists of the most detailed maps of how much water is locked up in the top layers of Earth’s land masses.

Swiss company to move Atlas 5 work to Alabama

August 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

Ruag Space, the Swiss manufacturer of nose shrouds for the Atlas 5 rocket, plans to relocate production of Atlas launcher components to United Launch Alliance’s rocket assembly plant in Decatur, Alabama.

New engines arrive at Antares rocket launch site

August 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

The first pair of new Russian main engines for Orbital ATK’s modernized Antares rocket has arrived at the company’s Virginia launch base as engineers prepare to return the commercial booster to flight after a catastrophic failure last year.

OTD…Aug. 10 and STS-105

August 10, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 2001…Discovery launched on an International Space Station crew exchange mission

OTD…Aug. 8 and STS-28 and STS-118

August 8, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 1989…Columbia launched with a classified communications satellite for the Defense Department

OTD…Aug. 7 and STS-85

August 7, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 1997…Discovery launched to deploy and later retrieve the CRISTA-SPAS atmospheric research satellite

NASA buys Soyuz seats as agency presses for commercial crew funding

August 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA has signed a $490 million agreement with the Russian government to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station in 2018 and 2019 as a hedge in case of delays to Boeing and SpaceX crew capsules.