June 2018 – Page 4 – Spaceflight Now

Northrop Grumman completes Orbital ATK acquisition

June 7, 2018 Stephen Clark

Northrop Grumman concluded its purchase of Orbital ATK on Wednesday, with the absorption of launch vehicle developer, satellite manufacturer, and munitions supplier as a new business unit named Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.

More signs of past — and possibly present — habitability of Mars

June 7, 2018 William Harwood

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, slowly making its way up the side of a towering mountain of sedimentary rock at the center of its Gale Crater landing site, has found fresh evidence for the red planet’s past — and possibly present — habitability, scientists reported Thursday.

Mission Reports

Pegasus rocket, NASA satellite head for launch base in Pacific

June 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Slung under the belly of a specially-equipped carrier airplane, a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket took off Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a two-day trek to a remote U.S. military test site in the Pacific Ocean, where crews will ready the air-dropped booster for launch of a NASA research satellite next week.

Video: Soyuz lifts off, beams down on-board camera views

June 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

A three-person crew heading for the International Space Station took off Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and arrived in orbit around nine minutes later, beginning a two-day pursuit of the research outpost.

U.S.-Russian-German crew launched to space station

June 6, 2018 William Harwood

Three days after a trio of space station fliers returned to Earth, a Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer and a NASA physician-astronaut rocketed into orbit aboard another Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday, setting off after the lab complex in the first step of a two-day rendezvous.

Live coverage: Soyuz crew docks with International Space Station

June 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Two days after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, three new crew members arrived Friday at the International Space Station to begin a six-month stay. Docking of the crew’s Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft to the station’s Rassvet module occurred at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT).

Chinese weather satellite successfully boosted into orbit

June 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

The last in an older generation of spin-stabilized Chinese weather satellites launched Tuesday toward a perch more than 22,000 miles over the equator, the start of a mission of at least four years monitoring tropical cyclones and other weather systems across Africa and Asia.

NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up for New Year’s Day flyby

June 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

Speeding through the outer reaches of the solar system nearly 3.8 billion miles from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has awakened from a five-and-a-half month slumber, ready for a second act after its 2015 flyby of Pluto with a New Year’s Day encounter with a primordial world set to become the most distant object ever explored.

Video and photos: Soyuz crew capsule lands in Kazakhstan

June 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

The Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft carrying U.S., Russian and Japanese space fliers returned to Earth on Sunday with a parachute-assisted, rocket-cushioned touchdown on the Kazakh steppe after 168 days in orbit.

After previous crew’s return, new space station residents set for launch Wednesday

June 5, 2018 William Harwood

With three space station fliers safely back on Earth after a pinpoint landing Sunday, three fresh crew members made final preparations for launch Wednesday from Kazakhstan to boost the lab’s crew back to six.