July 2016 – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

July 26, 2016 Justin Ray

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT (1237 GMT) today to deploy a classified satellite in service to the national security of the United States. Follow the mission in our live journal.

Photos: Atlas 5 rocket moved to launch pad for Thursday takeoff

July 26, 2016 Justin Ray

Ready to deliver 1.5 million pounds of thrust Thursday morning, an Atlas 5 rocket was rolled from its assembly building to the launch pad today for its national security satellite-deployment flight.

Preview: New satellite for spy agency awaits launch into space Thursday

July 26, 2016 Justin Ray

An Atlas 5 rocket carrying a classified national security satellite was rolled to the launch pad this morning for Thursday’s flight to bolster the U.S. intelligence-gathering space architecture.

Photos: Payload with whimsical logo painted on nose cone lifted atop Atlas

July 26, 2016 Justin Ray

Already shrouded in the Atlas 5 rocket’s Extra Extended Payload Fairing (XEPF) aluminum nose cone, the National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-61 satellite was delivered to Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility on Tuesday, July 19 and lifted aboard the United Launch Alliance vehicle for flight.

40 years since Viking, scientists still on the hunt for life on Mars

July 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

Four decades after NASA’s Viking landers acquired humanity’s first view of the surface of Mars, a planet whose reality lived in the imaginations of skywatchers for millennia, a definitive smoking gun for microbial life there still eludes scientists.

NASA books nuclear-certified Atlas 5 rocket for Mars 2020 rover launch

July 25, 2016 Justin Ray

America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas 5 rocket.

Weather outlook favorable for Thursday’s national security launch by Atlas 5

July 24, 2016 Justin Ray

Good weather for launching a rocket is forecast for Cape Canaveral and the Space Coast on Thursday morning when a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 is scheduled to take flight.

July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returns home

July 24, 2016 Justin Ray

Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific today in 1969, fulfilling President Kennedy’s challenge to a nation of landing a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Video: Two cargo freighters arrive at space station just days apart

July 21, 2016 Justin Ray

The Russian Progress 64P autonomous cargo ship docked to the International Space Station on Monday and the commercial SpaceX Dragon CRS 9 vessel was captured by the station’s robotic arm and berthed to the outpost on Wednesday.

Dragon cargo craft reaches port at International Space Station

July 20, 2016 Stephen Clark

A commercial resupply freighter owned and operated by SpaceX wrapped up a two-day trip to the International Space Station on Wednesday, delivering a new docking port and two tons of other equipment to research laboratory more than 250 miles above Earth.