June 2016 – Page 9 – Spaceflight Now

Proton rocket transferred to launch pad with TV broadcasting satellite

June 5, 2016 Stephen Clark

A Russian Proton rocket rolled out to a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sunday with a commercial communications satellite to broadcast high-definition television channels to millions of homes across Latin America.

Russian satellite launched to measure Earth’s size and shape

June 4, 2016 Stephen Clark

A Russian military spacecraft designed to map variations in Earth’s gravity field, rotation and tectonic movement reached orbit Sunday after a launch aboard a modified Soviet-era missile that spawned an uproar from Canadian environmentalists over where the rocket would drop a potentially toxic booster stage.

Q&A with Scott Bolton, principal investigator on NASA’s Juno mission

June 4, 2016 Stephen Clark

Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute leads the science team on NASA’s Juno mission, a robotic spacecraft now on final approach to Jupiter designed to probe the giant world’s deep interior and unravel how the solar system’s king planet formed.

SpaceX’s latest booster back home as company mulls pricing, proof tests

June 3, 2016 Stephen Clark

A Falcon 9 rocket core recovered after last week’s launch of a Thai communications satellite returned to port in Florida on Thursday as SpaceX preps a separate rocket structure for tests to prove it can withstand multiple missions and mulls pricing of a previously-flown rocket, targeting a re-flight of a used booster by the end of the summer.

OTD…June 3, 1965 and the first American walk in space

June 3, 2016 Justin Ray

The flight of Gemini 4 launched today in 1965 for NASA’s first Extra Vehicular Activity spacewalk by Ed White on a four-day orbital mission with commander Jim McDivitt.

Elon Musk hopes SpaceX will send humans to Mars in 2024

June 2, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s plan to send a Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018 will be the first in a sequence of unmanned commercial missions to the rust-colored world before the first voyage with humans as soon as 2024, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Wednesday.

Upcoming Delta 4-Heavy launch back on track after payload-related delay

June 2, 2016 Justin Ray

A new launch date has been established — June 9 — for the Delta 4-Heavy rocket to carry a classified satellite into space for U.S. national security needs.

Record double-satellite payload mated to Ariane 5 for launch next week

June 1, 2016 Stephen Clark

A new communications satellite to beam television channels to millions of DISH Network subscribers in the United States and the first spacecraft dedicated to support banking services have been attached to an Ariane 5 rocket for liftoff June 8 from French Guiana.