May 2017 – Page 7 – Spaceflight Now

Photos: SpaceX kicks off the week with Falcon 9 launch and landing

May 4, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX started the week with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after sunrise Monday, delivering a classified U.S. government spy satellite to orbit as the booster’s first stage returned to Cape Canaveral for a vertical landing.

Photos: Ariane 5 launcher on the eve of liftoff

May 4, 2017 Stephen Clark

A European Ariane 5 rocket sat poised for liftoff on a tropical launch pad Thursday nestled in the edge of the Amazon rainforest of South America.

Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off after short delay

May 4, 2017 Stephen Clark

An Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana at 2150 GMT (5:50 p.m. EDT) Thursday with a pair of European-built communications satellites for the Brazilian government and KTsat, a South Korean telecom operator. Liftoff was delayed more than one hour to resolve a problem with ground equipment.

Timeline for Ariane 5’s launch of SGDC and Koreasat 7

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

Two European-made communications satellites destined to serve the Brazilian government and commercial customers across Asia are set to ride an Ariane 5 rocket into orbit Thursday.

Ariane 5 rocket rolled to launch pad with satellites for Brazil, South Korea

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

A month-and-a-half after a general strike in French Guiana halted launch preparations, an Ariane 5 rocket arrived at its launch pad Wednesday on the northeastern coast of South America, a day before hauling two communications satellites into orbit for the Brazilian government and a South Korean company.

First aerial color photo of Mars rover’s “hole-in-one” landing site

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA has released the first high-resolution aerial color image of the Opportunity rover’s landing site on a sprawling Martian plain, where the airbag-cushioned robot fortuitously rolled into a Eagle Crater in January 2004, putting its scientific instruments face-to-face with a block of sedimentary rock that gave ground teams confirmation Mars was once a warmer, wetter, and habitable planet.

NASA probe finds Saturn ring gap emptier than predicted

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sped through a gap between Saturn and its rings for the second time Tuesday after data from the probe’s first perilous passage through the unexplored region last week found it to contain fewer potentially hazardous dust particles than expected.

SpaceX successfully boosts top secret U.S. government satellite into space

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired into space from Florida’s Atlantic coastline Monday with a clandestine payload for a U.S. government spy agency, then returned to Cape Canaveral for a pinpoint landing.

Video: Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket viewed from KSC press site

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

Check out a view of the Falcon 9 launch Monday from our camera at the Kennedy Space Center press site about three miles from pad 39A.

Watch spectacular video of Monday’s Falcon 9 blastoff and landing

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from the historic seaside launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday, powered a classified NRO spy satellite into space, then the launcher’s first stage descended to a vertical landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.