May 2016 – Page 7 – Spaceflight Now

Falcon 9 flight timeline with the JCSAT 14 satellite

May 5, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral early Friday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the JCSAT 14 communications satellite into orbit 32 minutes later.

Live coverage: Falcon 9 roars into orbit with Japanese satellite

May 5, 2016 Stephen Clark

A Falcon 9 rocket took off for its fourth flight of the year Friday with a middle-of-the-night mission for SKY Perfect JSAT, a Tokyo-based satellite operator. The JCSAT 14 communications satellite launched from Cape Canaveral at 1:21 a.m. EDT (0521 GMT), and the rocket’s first stage booster made a successful landing at sea a few minutes later.

55 years ago today: America entered human spaceflight arena

May 5, 2016 Justin Ray

The U.S. launched its first man into space on this date, May 5, 1961, as Alan Shepard rode the Freedom 7 capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight to 116.5 miles in altitude and 303 miles downrange to splashdown.

Stormy weather in Florida delays Falcon 9 launch

May 4, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has delayed a planned Falcon 9 launch with a Japanese communications satellite to Friday due to inclement weather on Florida’s Space Coast.

SpaceX undecided on payload for first Falcon Heavy flight

May 3, 2016 Stephen Clark

As SpaceX engineers put together the first model of the company’s new Falcon Heavy rocket, officials have not ruled out flying a paying customer’s satellite aboard the maiden flight of the humongous launcher scheduled later this year, the company’s president told Spaceflight Now.

Russian authorities retrieve Soyuz booster wreckage in Siberia

May 3, 2016 Stephen Clark

Four liquid-fueled rocket boosters dropped in Siberia by a Soyuz launcher speeding into orbit last week from a new Russian cosmodrome have been located and recovered, Russia’s space agency said.

New lineup spelled out for upcoming Atlas 5 rocket launches from the Cape

May 3, 2016 Justin Ray

The revised Atlas 5 rocket firing order includes two national security missions this summer before launching NASA’s daring asteroid sampler mission in September as originally planned.

Departure of Europe’s first Mars rover delayed to 2020

May 2, 2016 Stephen Clark

Europe’s ExoMars rover will not be ready for launch in 2018, officials said Monday, forcing a two-year delay for the ambitious mission to drill into the Martian surface and search for the remnants of past life.

Hold-down test firing complete for next SpaceX launch

May 2, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX technicians are attaching a Japanese communications satellite to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a planned launch Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral.

Boeing borrows from inventory to speed docking adapter delivery

May 1, 2016 Stephen Clark

Spare parts warehoused in the the United States and Russia will help Boeing finish assembly of a third space station docking port to receive arriving astronauts aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules, replacing a unit lost in a Falcon 9 launch failure last year.