Stephen Clark – Page 386 – Spaceflight Now

Orion’s parachutes tested under launch abort conditions

March 9, 2017 Stephen Clark

A model of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, in development to loft astronaut crews into deep space, was dropped from a U.S. Air Force cargo plane over Arizona on Wednesday in the latest in a series of tests to verify the capsule’s parachutes are up to the job of safely landing with humans on-board.

Video: Falcon 9 rocket test-fired ahead of EchoStar 23 launch

March 9, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was test-fired at Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A on Thursday evening, a few days before its scheduled blastoff with the EchoStar 23 communications satellite.

Q&A with Earl Maize, Cassini project manager (members only)

March 9, 2017 Stephen Clark

Earl Maize, who leads the Cassini mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, started working on the Saturn orbiter project in 1992. In September, the spacecraft will take an intentional plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, gaining unprecedented up-close measurements and ending a 13-year odyssey round the ringed planet.

Photos: Vega rocket vaults off launch pad

March 7, 2017 Stephen Clark

Firing off the launch pad with more than a half-million pounds of thrust, a Vega rocket soared into space Monday night from French Guiana with Europe’s Sentinel 2B environmental satellite.

Lightning mapper beams back first views from space

March 7, 2017 Stephen Clark

A sensitive infrared camera mounted on NOAA’s new GOES-16 weather satellite has captured its first astounding images of lightning flashes from a perch more than 22,000 miles out in space.

Blue Origin details new rocket’s capabilities, signs first orbital customer

March 7, 2017 Stephen Clark

Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos revealed new details of his space company’s reusable orbital-class booster Tuesday, releasing an animation illustrating the rocket’s liftoff from Cape Canaveral and announcing a contract with Eutelsat to put a commercial communications satellite on one of the launcher’s first missions.

Environmental sentinel launched from French Guiana

March 7, 2017 Stephen Clark

A European environmental satellite rode a solid-fueled Vega launcher from a tropical spaceport at the edge of the Amazon jungle into polar orbit Monday night, adding a new eye in the sky to check on the health of crops and forests from space.

Sierra Nevada to resume Dream Chaser flight tests

March 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

An atmospheric test model of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane is being readied for tow and landing tests at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California this spring.

Live coverage: European environmental satellite launched by Vega rocket

March 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

A Vega rocket launched from French Guiana at 0149:24 GMT Tuesday (8:49:24 p.m. EST Monday) with Europe’s fifth Sentinel environmental satellite. The Sentinel 2B observatory will take the pulse of Earth’s vegetation, monitoring crops, forests, urban sprawl, and pollution from polar orbit.

Launch timeline for Vega rocket’s flight with Sentinel 2B

March 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

Europe’s fifth Sentinel Earth observation satellite will ride a four-stage Vega rocket into polar orbit 488 miles above Earth to begin tracking changes in agriculture and forestry patterns and monitoring natural disasters.