Stephen Clark – Page 276 – Spaceflight Now

Photos: Twice-flown Falcon 9 rocket prepared for third mission

December 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is readying a Falcon 9 rocket booster for launch Monday at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on a record-setting mission with 64 smallsats on-board that will also mark the launch provider’s first use of the same first stage for a third flight.

Watch multi-angle replays of the Soyuz MS-11 launch

December 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

These video replays show the liftoff of the Soyuz rocket carrying Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station around six hours later.

Video: Soyuz lifts off with new space station crew

December 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

A Russian Soyuz booster climbed into orbit Monday with a U.S. Army colonel, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a Canadian flight engineer, kicking off a six-hour chase of the International Space Station.

Live coverage: Russia launches first crewed mission since Soyuz failure

December 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

Veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, flanked by Canadian flight engineer David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain, launched toward the International Space Station at 6:31 a.m. EST (1131 GMT) Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the first crew launch for Russia’s space program since a Soyuz booster failure led to the emergency landing of a two-man crew in October. The Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft docked with the station at 12:33 p.m. EST (1733 GMT).

Soyuz crew rocket arrives on the pad for first time since dramatic launch abort

December 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

Keeping up a tradition dating back to the dawn of the Space Age, a Russian Soyuz rocket emerged from a hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan before sunrise Saturday for rollout to Launch Pad No. 1 at the Central Asia space base, moving into position for liftoff Monday with a U.S.-Russian-Canadian crew heading for the International Space Station.

Live coverage: SpaceX launches record-setting mission from California

December 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:34 a.m. PST (1:34 p.m. EST; 1834 GMT) Monday. The launch, under contract to Spaceflight, carried into orbit 64 small satellites from 17 countries, the largest multi-payload rideshare mission ever flown on a U.S. rocket. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously flew on two missions from Florida, and landed again on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean after Monday’s launch.

SpaceX launch Monday will signify a new advance in reusing rockets

December 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

SpaceX teams at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are preparing to launch a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Monday, powered by a reused first stage booster flying on its third mission, a first for the company as engineers continue chasing a long-term goal of re-flying the same rocket on back-to-back days.

All-new Falcon 9 rocket tested in Florida as SpaceX preps for back-to-back launches

December 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

An all-new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines Friday night on launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, the opening act in a busy weekend of SpaceX launch preps leading up to a pair of blastoffs Sunday and Tuesday from California’s Central Coast and Florida’s Space Coast, respectively.

Rockot launches Russian military satellites

November 30, 2018 Stephen Clark

A Rockot booster and Breeze upper stage delivered three Russian military communications satellites to orbit Friday after a launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome around 500 miles north of Moscow.

On-board camera replay of PSLV’s deployment of 31 smallsats

November 30, 2018 Stephen Clark

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle released 31 satellites into two different orbits Thursday, and on-board cameras captured dazzling views of the smallsats flying away from the rocket’s upper stage high above Earth.