Stephen Clark – Page 282 – Spaceflight Now

China maintains launch pace with another Beidou mission

November 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

China chalked up another launch Thursday with the on-target delivery of a Beidou navigation satellite destined for an operating post in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator.

Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)

November 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

Marc Rayman is chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission, which has run out of fuel after a 11-year interplanetary journey that explored Vesta and Ceres, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Dramatic on-board video shows moment of Soyuz booster failure

November 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

New video released by the Russian space agency Thursday shows the moment a Soyuz rocket ran into trouble around two minutes after liftoff with a two-man crew Oct. 11, when one of the vehicle’s four first stage boosters crashed into the Soyuz core stage.

Departing crew snaps spectacular photo survey of space station’s exterior

November 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

A three-man crew that departed the International Space Station on Oct. 4 flew their Soyuz spaceship into position to take spectacular photos of the orbiting research complex as officials prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first element’s launch.

Rocket Lab sets new target date for first operational launch

October 31, 2018 Stephen Clark

Rocket Lab announced this week it has added two more nanosatellites to the first operational launch of the company’s Electron rocket, which is now scheduled to take off from New Zealand no earlier than Nov. 10, U.S. time, after a multi-month delay to resolve a technical problem.

NASA’s trailblazing Kepler telescope ends planet hunt

October 30, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Kepler telescope has run out of fuel and ended science operations, closing out a pioneering decade-long mission that showed planets are commonplace across our galaxy, agency officials said Tuesday.

Japan launches satellite to study human causes of climate change

October 29, 2018 Stephen Clark

A Japanese H-2A rocket deployed a satellite in orbit Monday to measure greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere and help scientists better quantify the role of human activity in climate change.

China-France Oceanography Satellite launches on research mission

October 29, 2018 Stephen Clark

A joint oceanography research mission developed by Chinese and French scientists launched Monday on top of a Long March 2C rocket from the Jiuquan space center in remote northwestern China.

Live coverage: Japan’s H-2A launches on 40th flight

October 28, 2018 Stephen Clark

Flying on its 40th mission, a Japanese H-2A rocket lifted off at 0408 GMT (12:08 a.m. EDT) Monday from the Tanegashima Space Center carrying Japan’s GOSAT 2 satellite to measure greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere and the KhalifaSat Earth observation satellite for the United Arab Emirates.

LandSpace falls short of orbit in private Chinese launch attempt

October 28, 2018 Stephen Clark

A solid-fueled satellite launcher backed by a Chinese start-up named LandSpace fired away from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert Saturday on its inaugural flight, but the rocket failed to place its microsatellite payload into orbit.