February 2019 – Page 2 – Spaceflight Now

Take an aerial 4K video tour of the Crew Dragon atop Falcon 9

February 26, 2019 Spaceflight Now

Take an aerial 4K video tour of the Crew Dragon atop the Falcon 9 rocket on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center during earlier pre-launch testing.

Photos: Falcon 9 flight marks Cape Canaveral’s first launch of 2019

February 25, 2019 Stephen Clark

The first launch from Cape Canaveral this year placed into orbit an Indonesian communications satellite, a privately-funded Israeli moon lander, and an experimental space surveillance microsatellite for the U.S. Air Force.

Scorched SpaceX rocket returns to port in Florida, ready to launch a fourth time

February 25, 2019 Stephen Clark

Singed and blackened from three fiery trips to the edge of space and back, a Falcon 9 rocket returned to Cape Canaveral on Sunday after a mission last that week carried the Israeli Beresheet moon lander into orbit, ready for inspections before attempting a fourth — and likely final — launch this spring.

Watch the launch of a Falcon 9 with natural sound

February 23, 2019 Spaceflight Now

The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Nusantara Satu communications satellite, formerly known as PSN 6, SpaceIL’s lunar lander, named Beresheet, and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s S5 space situational awareness satellite.

NASA, SpaceX clear Crew Dragon for critical March 2 test flight

February 23, 2019 William Harwood

NASA managers held a flight readiness review Friday and cleared SpaceX to press ahead with work to ready a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon commercial ferry ship for launch March 2 on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.

Japanese probe lands on asteroid to capture sample

February 22, 2019 Stephen Clark

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft briefly landed on an asteroid Thursday more than 200 million miles from Earth and fired a bullet to scoop up a rocky sample, successfully accomplishing one of the mission’s most challenging maneuvers before returning the asteroid specimen to scientists on the ground in December 2020.

Virgin Galactic stages second piloted spaceflight

February 22, 2019 William Harwood

Two test pilots and their instructor flew Virgin Galactic’s winged spaceplane out of the discernible atmosphere Friday for the second time in nine weeks, a successful sub-orbital flight that moves Richard Branson’s company one step closer to its goal of launching paying passengers and payloads on brief forays into the weightlessness of space.

Israeli moon lander hitches ride on SpaceX launch with Indonesian comsat

February 22, 2019 Stephen Clark

An Israeli-built moon lander aiming to become the first privately-funded mission reach another planetary body rocketed away from Cape Canaveral on Thursday night aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, riding piggyback with an Indonesian communications spacecraft and an experimental U.S. Air Force space surveillance microsatellite.

Watch live views of the Falcon 9 at Launch Complex 40 (members only)

February 22, 2019 Spaceflight Now

Live views of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida as it is readied to launch the Indonesian Nusantara Satu communications satellite, the Beresheet lunar lander for SpaceIL, and the S5 space surveillance satellite for the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Egyptian observation satellite launched by Russian rocket

February 21, 2019 Stephen Clark

A Soyuz rocket, with the help of a Fregat upper stage, delivered an Egyptian Earth observation satellite into a polar orbit at an altitude of more than 400 miles Thursday, overcoming an apparent technical problem after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to Russian news reports.