April 2022 – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

ULA begins stacking Atlas 5 rocket for Boeing’s Starliner test flight

April 21, 2022

Final assembly of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket began Wednesday with the hoisting of a first stage booster onto a mobile launch platform at Cape Canaveral, kicking off a campaign to prepare for liftoff May 19 on a delayed unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule.

Live coverage: SpaceX rocket launches with more Starlink satellites

April 21, 2022

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT) Thursday, carrying another 53 Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The first stage booster, flying for the 12th time, landed on an offshore drone ship.

Another batch of Starlink internet satellites ready for launch from Florida

April 20, 2022

While SpaceX’s next crew mission awaits a launch opportunity just up the coast, another Falcon 9 rocket is poised for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Thursday with another cluster of 53 Starlink internet satellites heading for a deployment orbit nearly 200 miles above Earth.

Next SpaceX crew launch on hold to wait for return of private astronaut mission

April 20, 2022

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the next crew to the International Space Station has been postponed from Saturday, a ripple effect from weather delays in returning a team of commercial astronauts from the outpost back to Earth, NASA officials said Wednesday.

Axiom’s private crew gets extra time on space station after landing delay

April 20, 2022

The four-man crew flying on Axiom’s first private mission to the International Space Station is getting some extra time on the orbiting complex this week. Managers have extended their stay until at least Thursday night due to bad weather in SpaceX’s splashdown zones off the coast of Florida.

SpaceX rolls out Falcon 9 rocket for next NASA crew launch

April 19, 2022

SpaceX rolled a reused Falcon 9 booster and a brand new Dragon crew capsule to their launch pad Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final tests, a day after the astronauts who will ride the spacecraft to the space station arrived for pre-flight preparations.

Ingenuity’s record-breaking year transforms Mars exploration

April 19, 2022

The first-ever powered flights over another planet have proved a resounding success for NASA’s JPL team, which is celebrating Ingenuity’s 12-month anniversary of its first helicopter hop on Mars Tuesday.

Robotic mission to Uranus receives top priority in decadal survey

April 19, 2022

In a long-awaited report released Tuesday, a panel of planetary scientists recommended NASA prioritize development of a flagship robotic mission that would orbit Uranus, a frozen world with 27 known moons that has not been explored since a fleeting visit by the Voyager 2 spacecraft 36 years ago.

NASA plans to roll first Artemis moon rocket back to hangar next week

April 18, 2022

NASA will move its first giant Space Launch System moon rocket off the launch pad and back to its hangar at the Kennedy Space Center as soon as next Tuesday, giving teams an opportunity to resolve several problems discovered during three attempts to load super-cold propellants into the launcher earlier this month.

Two Chinese rockets deploy telecom and environmental monitoring satellites

April 18, 2022

Two Chinese rocket launches hours apart Friday successfully deployed a radio and TV broadcasting spacecraft and an atmospheric environmental monitoring satellite.