Stephen Clark – Page 432 – Spaceflight Now

Five European satellites ready for Soyuz flight to custom orbits

April 22, 2016 Stephen Clark

The term “direct flight” will go to new heights Friday with a four-hour flight by a Soyuz rocket and its Fregat upper stage to deliver five satellites to three distinct orbital destinations hundreds of miles above Earth.

Orbital ATK eyes Kennedy Space Center as home of potential new launcher

April 21, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Thursday that Orbital ATK has begun negotiations to lease a disused section of Kennedy Space Center’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and an Apollo-era launch platform for the company’s proposed next-generation rocket.

Faulty bracket leaves Norwegian satellite grounded

April 21, 2016 Stephen Clark

Officials from the Norwegian Space Center are looking for another launch opportunity for a microsatellite designed to track ship traffic and study space weather after engineers determined it could not safely be attached to a Soyuz rocket set for liftoff Friday.

Aerojet Rocketdyne tapped to build high-power ion drive

April 21, 2016 Stephen Clark

Aerojet Rocketdyne has won a $67 million NASA contract to build an advanced electric propulsion system with double the thrust of today’s ion thrusters that could drive future expeditions to asteroids and Mars.

Cluster of satellites meets Soyuz launcher in French Guiana

April 20, 2016 Stephen Clark

Five European satellites packaged inside an aerodynamic fairing have joined a Soyuz rocket its launch pad in the French Guiana jungle for a roaring ride into orbit Friday.

Florida factory to mass-produce satellites at record pace

April 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

OneWeb officials Tuesday unveiled plans for a factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will churn out up to 15 satellites per week to populate low Earth orbit and beam broadband Internet signals worldwide.

Attitude control failures led to break-up of Japanese astronomy satellite

April 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s Hitomi X-ray observatory, beset by an attitude control problem that has disrupted communications since March 29, may have shed one of its power-generating solar panels or deployable telescope in orbit and is spinning too fast to contact ground controllers, officials said.

Chinese space lab back on Earth after groundbreaking embryo experiment

April 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

An uncrewed spacecraft landed in China’s Inner Mongolia region Monday after nearly 13 days in orbit carrying an array of microgravity research experiments, including a groundbreaking investigation that showed mammal embryos can develop in space, Chinese state media reported.

Expandable room installed on space station

April 16, 2016 Stephen Clark

The International Space Station’s robotic arm, under the control of engineers on Earth, extracted an experimental inflatable habitat from the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Saturday and attached it to the orbiting complex.

Swiss company to build Vulcan fairings, composite structures

April 14, 2016 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance plans to introduce a new payload fairing design on the next-generation Vulcan rocket, which will fly with composite parts made by Switzerland-based Ruag Space, the company’s chief executive said Wednesday.