Stephen Clark – Page 461 – Spaceflight Now

Skies are blue and water ice is red on Pluto

October 8, 2015 Stephen Clark

It turns out Pluto’s distinct haze layer carries a bluish hue, and deposits of water ice poking out from the frozen world’s crust are covered in a red sheen, scientists said Thursday.

Q&A with Mark Sirangelo, leader of Sierra Nevada Space Systems

October 8, 2015 Stephen Clark

Sierra Nevada Corp. has business activity across a spectrum of programs, from Orbcomm communications satellites to parts on the New Horizons mission to Pluto, but all eyes are now on the company’s Dream Chaser spacecraft. Sierra Nevada’s Mark Sirangelo met with reporters at the 2015 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

Q&A with Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s space systems group

October 8, 2015 Stephen Clark

Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle and station astronaut and now head of Orbital ATK’s space systems group, spoke with Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark on the sidelines of the 2015 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

Cygnus supply ship takes weather satellite’s slot in Atlas manifest

October 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

Orbital ATK plans to launch its next two commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station on Atlas 5 rockets, grabbing a launch slot in March after a next-generation U.S. weather satellite was delayed, industry officials said.

Quartet of Earth imaging satellites launched from China

October 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

Four commercial satellites launched from China’s northwestern spaceport Wednesday, riding into a 400-mile-high orbit on top of a two-stage Long March 2D booster rocket.

Workers complete $15 million in repairs to Antares launch pad

October 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

Repair crews in Virginia have restored the Antares booster’s launch pad — damaged in an explosive rocket crash nearly one year ago — to flight-ready status as the Orbital ATK launcher moves toward a return-to-flight in 2016.

NASA might pick two Discovery missions, but at a price

October 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

A senior NASA official said Monday the agency could select two new robotic planetary science missions next year for launch in the early 2020s, and the five finalists favor Venus and asteroid research.

Target of Japanese space mission named for dragon’s palace

October 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

The Japanese space agency has selected Ryugu as the name of an asteroid pursued by the country’s Hayabusa 2 space probe, naming the object after a dragon’s palace in an ancient Japanese fairy tale, officials said Monday.

Hurricane Joaquin eyed from space station

October 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

Astronauts on the International Space Station spied powerful Hurricane Joaquin spinning in the Bahamas in a spectacular photo showing the eye of the storm Friday.

Charon takes center stage in new batch of New Horizons images

October 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

With meandering canyons four times as long, and twice as deep, as the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest, the crust of Pluto’s moon Charon may have been shaped by violent eruptions and geology once thought improbable for a small body in the far depths of the solar system, scientists said Thursday.