May 2016 – Page 2 – Spaceflight Now

NASA calls off inflation of experimental station habitat

May 26, 2016 Stephen Clark

Mission control halted the expansion of Bigelow Aerospace’s experimental space station module Thursday after the structure did not grow as predicted when air began flowing into it.

Live coverage: Falcon 9 launches with Thai satellite and first stage lands at sea

May 26, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT). The commercial booster is hauling up the Thaicom 8 television broadcasting satellite from Cape Canaveral. The rocket’s first stage successfully landed on SpaceX’s recovery platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

Timeline for Falcon 9’s launch of the Thaicom 8 satellite

May 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

The Falcon 9 rocket’s fifth flight of the year will take off from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, heaving the Thaicom 8 communications satellite into orbit on an easterly trajectory from Florida’s Space Coast.

Bigelow’s station habitat to be expanded Thursday

May 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

Space station flight engineer Jeff Williams will send commands Thursday to pump air into an experimental soft-sided module developed by commercial space habitat builder Bigelow Aerospace, expanding the structure to four times its current size in a stepping stone to future orbital destinations. Live video begins at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT).

SpaceX ‘on track’ to launch astronauts in late 2017

May 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is on schedule to fly two NASA astronauts on a test flight to the International Space Station by the end of 2017, but there is a lot of work to do to ensure the company’s new Crew Dragon spaceship is up to the task and ready in time, a SpaceX manager said Tuesday.

On this date…Crew launched to fix Skylab

May 25, 2016 Justin Ray

The first crew to inhabit Skylab — Conrad, Weitz and Kerwin — launched today in 1973 for a 28-day mission that successfully made critical repairs, brought the station into operation and conducted solar astronomy, Earth resources and medical experiments.

Month: May 2016

NASA calls off inflation of experimental station habitat

Live coverage: Falcon 9 launches with Thai satellite and first stage lands at sea

Timeline for Falcon 9’s launch of the Thaicom 8 satellite

Bigelow’s station habitat to be expanded Thursday

SpaceX ‘on track’ to launch astronauts in late 2017

On this date…Crew launched to fix Skylab

Falcon 9 sails through customary preflight engine firing

Photos: Soyuz dashes away from French Guiana launch pad

Photos and video: Payload mated to Delta 4-Heavy rocket for upcoming launch

Video: Asteroid sampler craft delivered to launch site