Stephen Clark – Page 495 – Spaceflight Now

NASA eyes ion engines for Mars orbiter launching in 2022

March 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA officials want the agency’s next Mars orbiter to pull double duty as a communications relay station for a fleet of surface landers and as a trailblazer for a future round-trip sample return mission and human expeditions to the red planet.

Reader-submitted shots of Falcon 9 launch

March 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

Spaceflight Now readers sent in photos of Sunday’s blastoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, which lit up a late-night moonlit sky over Florida’s Space Coast on the way to orbit with two communications satellites.

Plasma-driven satellites launched from Cape Canaveral

March 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

Two communications satellites blasted off Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, kicking off more than a half-year of novel maneuvers in orbit using plasma drive engines to position the spacecraft 22,300 miles above Earth and link the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Photos: Falcon 9 stands ready to launch dual-satellite stack

March 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s 22-story Falcon 9 rocket stands on Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Sunday, hours before the scheduled liftoff of a pair of commercial communications satellites for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite.

Boeing’s first two all-electric satellites ready for launch

March 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

A new class of Boeing-built spacecraft will fly into orbit for the first time Sunday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, combining Boeing’s electric propulsion technology with SpaceX’s bargain launch prices to send up communications satellites at a fraction of the typical cost.

Photos: Satellites readied for tandem launch on Falcon 9

February 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

Two communications spacecraft built by Boeing and owned by Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite will ride a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Sunday, and these pictures show the satellites stacked together and prepared for liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

Falcon 9 launch timeline with Eutelsat 115 West B and ABS 3A

February 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent into space from Cape Canaveral with the Eutelsat 115 West B and ABS 3A communications satellite.

Could these bright spots on Ceres be ice volcanoes?

February 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

The discovery of puzzling bright spots on Ceres, the Texas-sized world now being studied by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, has scientists wondering whether the features could be plumes from volcanoes launching material into space.

Russian intelligence gets an upgrade with satellite launch

February 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

Russia launched a next-generation military reconnaissance satellite Friday, ushering in an era of digital mapping from orbit after decades of relying on film returned to Earth inside landing capsules.

Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches

February 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has launched its third Falcon 9 of the year. The rocket is carrying a pair of communications payloads for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite.