Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Antares rocket from Virginia with Orbital ATK’s sixth operational Cygnus resupply flight to the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule returns to Earth
Nearly four weeks after its arrival at the International Space Station, a SpaceX Dragon supply ship departed the research lab Saturday and dropped out of orbit for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles. The Dragon capsule was released from the station’s robotic arm at 4:58 a.m. EST (0958 GMT), and splashdown occurred at approximately 10:36 a.m. EST (1536 GMT).
Mission Reports
Astronauts stage second spacewalk in five days
Five days after work to replace the grapple fitting on one end of the space station’s robot arm, commander Randy Bresnik and flight engineer Mark Vande Hei ventured back outside the lab complex Tuesday to lubricate the new arm mechanism, to replace a degraded camera and to carry out a variety of lower-priority chores.
Atlas 5
AEHF satellite arrives in Florida for first of nearly 20 Space Force launches this year
The sixth and final satellite in the U.S. military’s network of ultra-secure, nuclear-hardened AEHF communications relay stations has arrived in Florida for final preparations for liftoff in March on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the first of nearly 20 U.S. Space Force missions planned for launch in the first year of operations for the new military service.