Stephen Clark – Page 92 – Spaceflight Now

Webb completes sea voyage to launch base in French Guiana

October 12, 2021 Stephen Clark

The James Webb Space Telescope, a successor to Hubble, arrived at the European Space Agency’s launch base Tuesday in Kourou, French Guiana, for final checkouts and fueling ahead of blastoff in December on top of an Ariane 5 rocket.

Eyes in space monitor La Palma volcano

October 12, 2021 Stephen Clark

Satellites and astronauts orbiting Earth have been tracking the eruption of a volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma for the last three weeks, revealing a red-hot river of lava pouring out of the ground and flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

Adapter structure with 10 CubeSats installed on top of Artemis moon rocket

October 12, 2021 Stephen Clark

Workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center have lifted the Orion Stage Adapter on top of the Space Launch System moon rocket, adding the structure housing 10 CubeSat rideshare payloads heading into deep space on the Artemis 1 mission. But three of the CubeSat missions missed their opportunity to fly on the first SLS mission.

On the verge of another Soyuz launch, OneWeb looks to flights on Indian rockets

October 11, 2021 Stephen Clark

OneWeb announced Monday it is working on an agreement to launch future broadband internet satellites on Indian rockets, the same day the next batch of 36 OneWeb spacecraft moved into position at a Russian spaceport for liftoff Thursday on a Soyuz launcher.

Secondary payloads launched with Landsat begin commissioning

October 10, 2021 Stephen Clark

Ground teams are stepping through testing of three small CubeSats launched with the Landsat 9 remote sensing satellite last month, preparing the small spacecraft for exoplanet observations and communications experiments. NASA says engineers have not established contact with another CubeSat designed for space weather research.

Japanese satellite launch facing weeks-long delay

October 8, 2021 Stephen Clark

The launch of a solid-fueled Japanese Epsilon rocket with nine small satellites, originally scheduled to blastoff last week, has been grounded until after the flight of a larger H-2A launcher later this month, Japan’s space agency said Friday.

Astronauts choose ‘Endurance’ as name for new SpaceX crew capsule

October 8, 2021 Stephen Clark

The astronauts who will ride SpaceX’s newest Dragon spaceship into orbit later this month said Thursday they named their spacecraft “Endurance” as a tribute to the human spirit and a historic sailing vessel used by Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Asteroid probe mounted on Atlas booster originally assigned to astronaut flight

October 7, 2021 Stephen Clark

Teams at Cape Canaveral transferred NASA’s Lucy asteroid explorer to a United Launch Alliance integration building Thursday and mounted the robotic science probe atop an Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff later this month, using a booster originally built to send astronauts into space.

NASA swaps two astronauts from Boeing missions to SpaceX crew flight

October 7, 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA has reassigned two rookie astronauts from missions on Boeing’s troubled Starliner crew capsule to a SpaceX crew mission to the International Space Station late next year, a move agency officials said will allow the astronauts to gain spaceflight experience for future lunar expeditions.

SpaceX is adding two more Crew Dragons to its fleet

October 6, 2021 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is about to double the size of its fleet of Crew Dragon spaceships. The company is debuting a new spacecraft for a NASA launch later this month, and is building a fourth human-rated capsule that should be ready for flight early next year, a SpaceX official said Wednesday.