July 2020 – Page 7 – Spaceflight Now

Behnken describes spacewalk views of Crew Dragon as “just awesome”

July 7, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA astronaut Bob Behnken, now in the second half of his mission to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship, glimpsed the commercial crew capsule from a unique viewpoint at the far end of the station’s solar power truss during a pair of recent spacewalks.

Argentine team returns to Florida to prep radar satellite for late July launch

July 6, 2020 Stephen Clark

A team of 18 Argentine engineers is quarantining in Florida this week after arriving from Buenos Aires, observing coronavirus health restrictions before beginning operations at Cape Canaveral next week to ready Argentina’s second radar Earth observation satellite for liftoff as soon as July 25 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Chinese launches loft satellites to study space environment and observe Earth

July 6, 2020 Stephen Clark

China launched a Long March 2D rocket Saturday with a satellite Chinese officials claimed will study the space environment and conduct technology demonstrations, less than two days after a Long March 4B rocket took off from a different launch site with an Earth-imaging payload.

Israel successfully places surveillance satellite into orbit

July 6, 2020 Stephen Clark

For the first time in nearly four years, a rocket successfully shot into orbit from Israel on Monday with a military reconnaissance satellite to shore up the country’s space-based capability to surveil Iran and other adversaries.

Rocket Lab satellite launch fails before reaching orbit

July 4, 2020 Stephen Clark

A failure during the second stage burn of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket caused seven small commercial satellites to crash back to Earth Saturday following liftoff from New Zealand.

Top secret NRO payload installed on Minotaur rocket for launch from Virginia

July 4, 2020 Stephen Clark

Crews working on Virginia’s Eastern Shore this week raised a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office — the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency — atop a solid-fueled Minotaur 4 rocket for liftoff July 15 on the first Minotaur launch in nearly three years.

Photos: Falcon 9 rocket launches from Florida with GPS navigation satellite

July 4, 2020 Stephen Clark

The first launch by SpaceX for the U.S. Space Force on June 30 carried the third in a new line of modernized GPS navigation satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral.

Live coverage: Rocket Lab confirms launch failure after liftoff with seven satellites

July 4, 2020 Stephen Clark

Seven small satellites from Canon Electronics, Planet and In-Space Missions launched from New Zealand on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket Saturday at 5:19:36 p.m. EDT (2119:36 GMT), but the payloads and launch vehicle were lost after a problem during the second stage burn.

UK government commits $500 million in bid to rescue bankrupt OneWeb

July 3, 2020 Stephen Clark

The UK government and India’s Bharti Global mobile telecom operator announced Friday they placed the winning bid to purchase OneWeb, which filed for bankruptcy in March while in the early stages of deploying a megaconstellation of broadband satellites.

Rocket Lab plans next launch Saturday, closes in on first mission from Virginia

July 3, 2020 Stephen Clark

Rocket Lab is readying for a launch from its New Zealand spaceport Saturday (U.S. time) with seven commercial satellites from Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, while teams at Wallops Island, Virginia, move closer to Rocket Lab’s first launch there as soon as August.