Stephen Clark – Page 231 – Spaceflight Now

Indian moon lander ready for final descent

September 5, 2019 Stephen Clark

The Vikram lander, part of India’s Chandrayaan 2 mission launched in July, will attempt to land near the lunar south pole Friday and deploy a rover to conduct the first on-the-ground scientific surveys away from the moon’s equatorial regions.

Mini-helicopter installed on NASA’s next Mars-bound rover

September 4, 2019 Stephen Clark

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California have attached a flying helicopter drone to the belly of the Mars 2020 rover set for launch next July.

Two satellites launch aboard Chinese Kuaizhou 1A rocket

September 3, 2019 Stephen Clark

Two experimental Chinese satellites have launched on a Kuaizhou 1A rocket from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China.

Russian military satellite orbited by Rockot launcher

August 30, 2019 Stephen Clark

A geodetic surveying satellite for the Russian military successfully launched Friday aboard a Rockot booster — a modified ballistic missile — from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Surveillance photos reveal apparent explosion on Iranian launch pad

August 30, 2019 Stephen Clark

A day after commercial satellite images revealed a smoke plume over an Iranian launch pad, President Trump tweeted a remarkably high-resolution aerial photograph of the remote satellite launch facility Friday — apparently from a classified satellite or airborne drone — and denied U.S. involvement in the accident.

Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

August 30, 2019 Stephen Clark

After assessing any damage to the spaceport caused by Hurricane Dorian as it narrowly missed Florida’s east coast, NASA says the Kennedy Space Center will reopen for normal operations Friday. Teams rolled the Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform from pad 39B back into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building last week for safekeeping during the storm.

ULA releases ‘rocketcam’ video from Atlas 5 launch

August 30, 2019 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance has released views from cameras mounted aboard the company’s most recent Atlas 5 rocket launch showing the rocket’s blastoff from Cape Canaveral at dawn Aug. 8 with a U.S. Air Force communications satellite.

Trump reauthorizes U.S. Space Command

August 29, 2019 Stephen Clark

President Trump reestablished U.S. Space Command in a White House ceremony Thursday, setting up a unified combatant command previously dissolved in 2002 that Trump said “will defend America’s vital interests in space” amid growing threats to space assets and services.

James Webb Space Telescope fully assembled in California

August 29, 2019 Stephen Clark

Teams working in Northrop Grumman’s spacecraft factory in Southern California have connected the spacecraft and science modules of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time, a major milestone as engineers prepare to verify a fix to tears in the observatory’s sunshield, and begin launch vibration and acoustic testing in the coming months.

ExoMars rover leaves British factory, heads for testing in France

August 28, 2019 Stephen Clark

The European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover left its Airbus factory in Britain on Wednesday, heading for a round of testing in France before integration with its carrier and descent modules on pace for launch toward the Red Planet next July.