March 2016 – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX hopes to sell used Falcon 9 boosters for as low as $40 million

March 31, 2016

SpaceX intends to cut the price of a Falcon 9 rocket launch by up to 30 percent when flying with reused first stage boosters, an achievement the company still hopes to demonstrate before the end of the year, SpaceX’s president said recently.

Photos: Progress supply launch viewed from space station

March 31, 2016

Astronauts living on the International Space Station captured amazing views of a Soyuz rocket streaking into orbit from Kazakhstan with nearly 3 tons of supplies destined for the massive research complex.

Two GPS navigation birds retired after two decades in space

March 31, 2016

A pair of long-lived Global Positioning System satellites launched two decades ago recently went to graveyard orbits and were turned off, their missions at an end.

United Launch Alliance narrowing lists of suspects in rocket anomaly

March 31, 2016

The detective work into the Atlas 5 rocket’s first stage performance trouble during the Cygnus cargo ship launch a week ago has implicated the fuel system as the likely culprit for using up the liquid oxygen supply too quickly.

Russian space station resupply mission lifts off

March 31, 2016

A Soyuz rocket launched Thursday with a Progress cargo freighter carrying more than 5,300 pounds of fuel, water, and supplies for the International Space Station’s six-person crew.

Air Force ends effort to recover DMSP weather satellite

March 30, 2016

Attempts to restore the U.S. Air Force’s newest weather satellite to service have ended, a military spokesperson said Wednesday, cutting a planned five-year mission short less than two years after it launched.

U.S. military rules out collision as cause of Hitomi satellite’s woes

March 29, 2016

As Japanese ground controllers struggle to restore communications with a tumbling space telescope in orbit, the U.S. military’s space surveillance experts have eliminated one cause for the satellite’s troubles.

Long March 3A rocket gives boost to Chinese navigation satellite

March 29, 2016

China’s Beidou navigation system received a new addition Tuesday with the successful launch of a fresh satellite aboard a Long March 3A rocket.

Progress cargo craft rolled out for launch to space station

March 29, 2016

The second of three robotic resupply ships going to the International Space Station in two weeks has arrived at its launch pad in Kazakhstan for liftoff Thursday aboard a Soyuz rocket.

Soyuz aces test campaign at new Vostochny Cosmodrome

March 28, 2016

Russian technicians have finished tests of launch facilities at the Vostochny Cosmodrome ahead of the first liftoff from the new Siberian spaceport as soon as next month, Roscosmos announced Friday.