Stephen Clark – Page 412 – Spaceflight Now

SES stands by SpaceX after getting ‘good discount’ on reused rocket

September 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

One of SpaceX’s most loyal commercial customers, the European-based telecom satellite operator SES, remains committed to flying a spacecraft aboard a “refurbished” Falcon 9 booster as soon as the company resumes rocket flights, officials said.

Quick work saved the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission from nearby explosion

September 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

Engineers scrambled to keep NASA’s billion-dollar asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on track for its launch last week in the aftermath of an explosion a mile away at SpaceX’s launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Musk: No answers so far in ‘difficult’ failure investigation

September 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is more than a week into a company-led probe of a launch pad explosion Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 booster and an Israeli communications satellite, but the investigation so far has turned up no smoking gun on the cause of the mishap, Elon Musk said Friday.

Photos: India’s GSLV fires off the launch pad

September 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle climbed away from Sriharikota Island on the country’s east coast Thursday, delivering a weather satellite into orbit and achieving the third success in a row for the previously-troubled booster.

GSLV puts advanced Indian weather satellite in orbit

September 8, 2016 Stephen Clark

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle blasted off Thursday with a meteorological observatory destined to track storms and tropical cyclones from a perch more than 22,000 miles above Earth

NASA official says new mission selections on track despite InSight woes

September 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

A $150 million cost overrun and two-year launch delay for NASA’s InSight Mars mission could mean fewer opportunities for new planetary science missions in the next few years, but the head of the agency’s science division said this week NASA will still approve development of at least one new solar system probe in December.

OSIRIS-REx reaches launch pad with money to spare

September 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

The scientist in charge of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission hopes to apply more than $30 million in leftover funding toward reducing the risk of the probe’s touch-and-go maneuver to snag a piece of asteroid Bennu, then eventually hire more experts to analyze the primordial specimens when they return to Earth in 2023.

SpaceX may turn to other launch pads when rocket flights resume

September 6, 2016 Stephen Clark

Ground crews could face months of cleanup and repairs to SpaceX’s primary launch pad at Cape Canaveral after a rocket explosion wrecked the facility last week, but officials said that other pads in Florida and California could support Falcon 9 flights when the booster is ready to blast off again.

Live coverage: Soyuz capsule brings home station crew

September 6, 2016 Stephen Clark

Soyuz commander Alexei Ovchinin, flight engineer Oleg Skripochka and outgoing space station skipper Jeff Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday with a parachute-assisted touchdown in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz TMA-20M capsule undocked from the station at 2151 GMT (5:51 p.m. EDT) and landed at 0113 GMT (9:13 p.m. EDT).

Spacecom to recoup value of lost satellite, could ask SpaceX for compensation

September 5, 2016 Stephen Clark

The Israeli company which owned a commercial communications satellite destroyed in an explosion last week at SpaceX’s launch pad in Florida will receive more than $200 million in payouts stemming from the incident, and hopes to purchase a replacement, officials said Monday.