Stephen Clark – Page 501 – Spaceflight Now

Bonus fuel could change OSIRIS-REx flight plan

February 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

A NASA spacecraft under construction for launch in 2016 to retrieve samples from asteroid Bennu could benefit from an extra load of fuel, allowing an extended stay at the asteroid or a return to Earth a year early.

NASA’s Pluto probe takes new pictures of target

February 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

Less than six months from a historic close-up of Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft has glimpsed its distant target at a range of 126 million miles, and better pictures are coming.

NOAA space weather sentinel joined with Falcon 9 rocket

February 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

A new space weather observatory to be stationed a million miles from Earth has been enclosed inside the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff Sunday from Cape Canaveral.

Photos: ESA re-entry testbed prepared for liftoff

February 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

Engineers have put the finishing touches on a prototype spaceship representing a leap in European space technology, aiming for liftoff Feb. 11 for a flight 260 miles into space and back to Earth for a pinpoint splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA presses Congress for more commercial crew funding

February 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

The Obama administration has requested more than $1.2 billion from congressional appropriators next year to meet NASA’s funding commitments for Boeing and SpaceX’s commercial crew ferry spacecraft, and anything less could delay flights of the capsules past 2017.

Aging Mars rover could be shut down

February 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, working well past their expected lifetimes, could be shut down in fiscal year 2016 as the agency tries to balance funding for older missions and development of modernized new space probes.

Iranian satellite successfully placed in orbit

February 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

Iranian engineers are in contact with an experimental satellite after it blasted off Monday aboard a two-stage Safir booster, marking Iran’s first successful orbital launch in three years, state media reported.

Second satellite launched for Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network

February 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

A commercial satellite launched Sunday on a Russian Proton rocket successfully deployed in orbit thousands of miles above Earth to join Inmarsat’s new communications network providing high-speed data links between airplanes, ships and far-flung customers anywhere in the world.

Europe’s re-entry demonstrator mated to Vega rocket

February 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

Launch crews in French Guiana have mounted an innovative European space plane on top of a solid-fueled Vega launcher for a Feb. 11 suborbital test flight.

H-2A rocket boosts Japanese radar spy satellite into orbit

February 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

Japan launched a new satellite Sunday to reinforce the country’s fleet of orbiting spy platforms charged with monitoring its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.