Stephen Clark – Page 402 – Spaceflight Now

NASA declares end for space station’s hurricane monitoring instrument

November 28, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s RapidScat instrument mounted on a platform outside the International Space Station to track winds over the world’s oceans has ended its mission after a technical glitch disabled the sensor earlier this year, officials said Monday.

Turkish military satellite joined with Vega launcher

November 28, 2016 Stephen Clark

A European-built reconnaissance satellite for the Turkish armed forces has been fastened to the top of its Vega launcher for liftoff from French Guiana next week.

ESA says doomed Mars lander succumbed to bad altitude reading

November 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

One second of faulty data led to the destruction of a European spacecraft on final descent to Mars last month, officials said Wednesday.

Study shows Pluto should be counted among solar system’s ocean worlds

November 24, 2016 Stephen Clark

Scientists believe they can explain how an ocean of water is lurking beneath an ice sheet inside Pluto’s prominent heart-shaped region, an iconic frozen landscape discovered during the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby last year.

China launches data relay satellite for future space station crews

November 22, 2016 Stephen Clark

China added a fourth craft Tuesday to a network of geostationary data relay satellites tasked with keeping mission control in steady contact with Shenzhou crew capsules and a planned space station.

Cygnus cargo freighter leaves station, but its mission is not over

November 21, 2016 Stephen Clark

A commercial Cygnus supply ship left the International Space Station on Monday after delivering more than 5,000 pounds of cargo and experiments, ready to start a week of standalone operations to include a groundbreaking microgravity fire experiment and deployment of four commercial weather-monitoring CubeSats in orbit.

Slow-motion replays and dramatic images from Thursday’s Ariane 5 flight

November 20, 2016 Stephen Clark

Don’t miss riveting slow-motion video of Thursday’s blastoff of four European navigation satellite satellites captured by high-speed cameras at the Ariane 5 rocket’s jungle launch pad, plus dramatic up-close snapshots showing the launcher’s climb into the sky on 2.9 million pounds of ground-shaking thrust.

Photos: Station crew suits up, blasts off on Soyuz rocket

November 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, French-born European Space Agency flight engineer Thomas Pesquet and veteran NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson put on their Sokol spacesuits, boarded their Soyuz capsule and blasted into orbit Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Check out photos of their launch day activities.

Two Chinese astronauts back on Earth

November 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

Two Chinese astronauts closed out a month in space Friday with a parachute-assisted landing in northern China’s remote Inner Mongolia territory, a day after the crew departed the Tiangong 2 space lab to begin the trip home.

Europe’s satellite navigation fleet gets big boost from Ariane 5 rocket

November 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

Europe’s Galileo navigation program turned to the workhorse Ariane 5 rocket for a heavy lift Thursday, delivering four new satellites to orbit on the launcher’s 75th successful flight in a row and pushing the growing fleet closer to global coverage.