April 2020 – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

Video: Falcon 9 fires up engines on pad 39A (members only)

April 17, 2020 Stephen Clark

Nine Merlin main engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) Friday, April 17, during a hold-down test-firing on launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA, SpaceX set May 27 as target date for first crew launch

April 17, 2020 Stephen Clark

Nearly a decade in the making, NASA and SpaceX have set May 27 as the target launch date for the first crewed space mission to launch into orbit from U.S. soil since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

Soyuz with crew of three lands safely in Kazakhstan

April 17, 2020 William Harwood

A Russian cosmonaut and his two NASA crewmates undocked from the International Space Station and landed in Kazakhstan early Friday, returning to an unfamiliar world in the grip of a pandemic that will force them to extend the social isolation they were hoping to end.

Live coverage: Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

April 16, 2020 Stephen Clark

A Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Thursday to bring home NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir, astronaut Andrew Morgan and Russian commander Oleg Skripochka. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft departed the station at 9:53 p.m. Thursday (0153 GMT Friday) and landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 1:16 a.m. EDT (0516 GMT).

U.S. officials condemn Russian anti-satellite test

April 16, 2020 Stephen Clark

The U.S. military’s chief of space operations rebuked a test of a Russian anti-satellite missile Wednesday, although the test did not apparently target and destroy a spacecraft in orbit.

Time-lapse: Falcon 9 goes upright at launch pad 39A (members only)

April 16, 2020 Spaceflight Now

Watch a time-lapse video of the Falcon 9 rocket going upright at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center as SpaceX prepares for the launch of the seventh batch of Starlink broadband Internet satellites.

ULA delivers Delta 4-Heavy rocket to California launch base

April 16, 2020 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance’s rocket transport ship has delivered a Delta 4-Heavy rocket to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in preparation for launch of a U.S. government spy satellite late this year.

Live coverage: SpaceX launch moved up to Wednesday

April 16, 2020 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has moved up its next launch to Wednesday, one day earlier than previously planned. A Falcon 9 rocket will take off with the next 60 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband Internet network at 3:37 p.m. EDT (1937 GMT) Wednesday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There’s a 90 percent chance of favorable weather for launch Wednesday.

Watch live as Falcon 9 prepared for Starlink launch at pad 39A (members only)

April 16, 2020 Spaceflight Now

Live coverage as SpaceX prepares a Falcon 9 rocket for launch from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will launch SpaceX’s seventh batch of Starlink broadband satellites.

OSIRIS-REx spacecraft carries out first of two rehearsals before sampling asteroid

April 15, 2020 Stephen Clark

Operating with on-board autonomy more than 140 million miles from Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft succeeded Tuesday in a rehearsal for the sample return mission’s touch-and-go landing on an asteroid later this year.