2016 – Page 58 – Spaceflight Now

Upgraded Antares rolls out to launch pad for tests

May 12, 2016 Stephen Clark

An Antares booster emerged from its hangar on Virginia’s Eastern Shore and rolled out to its launch pad Thursday for the first time since a rocket failure grounded Orbital ATK’s cargo launcher in 2014.

Q&A with John Elbon, VP and general manager of Boeing’s space exploration division

May 12, 2016 Stephen Clark

Boeing’s work on the International Space Station, the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule and NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System are under the umbrella of John Elbon, who leads the company’s space exploration division in Houston.

Shuttle skipper, mountaineering spacewalker going into Hall of Fame

May 12, 2016 Justin Ray

Commander of the 100th space shuttle flight and a spacewalker who later climbed Mount Everest will be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.

Q&A with Mike Hawes, Lockheed Martin’s Orion program manager

May 12, 2016 Stephen Clark

The man in charge of the Orion crew capsule program at Lockheed Martin is a lifelong veteran of the space program, beginning his tenure at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the late 1970s before taking posts in Washington and joining Lockheed Martin to lead the company’s work on the nation’s new spacecraft for journeys beyond Earth orbit.

Cargo-carrying Dragon spaceship returns to Earth

May 11, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station on Wednesday, fired rocket thrusters to brake out of orbit, and parachuted to a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with approximately 3,461 pounds of experiment samples and equipment.

Live coverage: Dragon supply ship back on Earth

May 11, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft departed the International Space Station on Wednesday at 9:19 a.m. EDT (1319 GMT), concluding the commercial spaceship’s eighth visit to the complex. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean occurred at 2:55 p.m. EDT (1855 GMT).

Companies offer fresh perspectives on recent rocket landings

May 10, 2016 Stephen Clark

In case the the sight of a large rocket plummeting back to Earth, only to be slowed in the last seconds by a puff of thrust, hasn’t lost its novelty yet, SpaceX and Blue Origin have released dramatic videos showing their recent powered rocket landings from new angles.

Kepler adds 1,284 exoplanets to its total

May 10, 2016 William Harwood

A statistical analysis of data collected by NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope during its initial mission shows a better than 99 percent chance that 1,284 worlds previously classified as “candidates” are, in fact, actual planets, researchers said Tuesday.

Key return to flight milestone looms for Antares rocket

May 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

Targeting a resumption of Antares cargo launches to the International Space Station as soon as July, Orbital ATK plans to roll out an upgraded Antares rocket to a launch pad in Virginia this week for a 30-second firing of the booster’s new engines.

Destructive Canadian wildfire sighted from space

May 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

Satellites sailing hundreds of miles over a destructive wildfire ravaging the northern Alberta town of Fort McMurray have returning stunning images illustrating the extent of the blaze that has displaced tens of thousands of people.