April 2018 – Page 7 – Spaceflight Now

NASA’s InSight lander inside one month to launch toward Mars

April 8, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s InSight Mars lander will be buttoned up for launch in the coming weeks at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, in preparation for its hoisting atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff in the predawn hours of May 5.

Rocket Lab preps for first commercial satellite launch

April 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Rocket Lab’s first full-up commercial launch is set for April 19, U.S. time, from the company’s privately-operated launch base in New Zealand with three U.S.-owned satellites to collect weather data.

Saturn’s clouds run deep, rings may rain organics

April 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Saturn’s clouds have roots deeper inside the planet’s atmosphere than scientists previously thought, and Saturn’s rings — now believed to have formed in the last 200 million years — appear to be raining organic molecules down on the planet, according to observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft last year in the final weeks of its mission.

Video: SpaceShipTwo rocket plane soars on supersonic test flight

April 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Virgin Galactic’s commercial SpaceShipTwo rocket plane made its highest and fastest flight to date Thursday, moving the company’s space tourism ambitions closer to reality more than three years after a fatal accident suspended powered test flights.

Photos: VSS Unity’s first powered test flight

April 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

These images captured by photographer Gene Blevins show Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo space plane making its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday over California’s Mojave Desert, then gliding back to a runway landing.

Ariane 5 returns to service with dual-satellite launch

April 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

Boosted by two solid-fueled motors and a hydrogen-burning main engine, a European Ariane 5 rocket took off Thursday from French Guiana with a Japanese military communications payload and a U.S.-built, British-owned broadband satellite, returning to service after a January mission placed two spacecraft in the wrong orbit.

Video: Ariane 5 rocket lifts off with communications satellites

April 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

A European Ariane 5 rocket climbed off its launch pad in French Guiana with nearly 3 million pounds of thrust Thursday, carrying two communications satellites to orbit for the Japanese military and British-based Avanti Communications.

Virgin Galactic completes first rocket-powered test flight since 2014

April 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

Virgin Galactic’s second piloted suborbital spaceship made its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday, three-and-a-half years after the loss of an earlier model in an accident that killed one test pilot and injured another.

Live coverage: Ariane 5 lifts off on first flight since off-target launch

April 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

The first Ariane 5 launch since a mission flew off course Jan. 25, deploying two communications satellites into an off-target orbit, is underway. Liftoff with the DSN 1/Superbird 8 and Hylas 4 communications satellites occurred on time at 2134 GMT (5:34 p.m. EDT).

Dragon cargo capsule reaches space station for second time

April 4, 2018 Stephen Clark

A commercial Dragon spacecraft glacially approached the International Space Station on Wednesday, allowing a robotic arm controlled by Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai to reach out and grapple the supply ship as it soared 250 miles over Africa, completing SpaceX’s 14th mission to the research complex, and the second by the same capsule.