These views show United Launch Alliance’s 233-foot-tall Delta 4-Heavy rocket standing on Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on the eve of liftoff with a classified spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. This will be the final Delta launch from the West Coast.
United Launch Alliance will move out of historic Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California following the flight of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket set for Saturday, leaving the military to find a new tenant for the launch pad once intended to host space shuttle missions on the West Coast.
Fresh images from the James Webb Space Telescope show the faraway planet Neptune hung amid a tapestry of even more distant galaxies, the latest view from a now-regular flow of observations from astronomers’ new eye on the universe. Scientists released Webb’s first views of Neptune and Mars this week.
Engineers filled up the Artemis 1 moon rocket with more than 750,000 gallons of super-cold propellants in a tanking test Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center after successfully troubleshooting another hydrogen leak. NASA’s launch director said she was “extremely encouraged” by the test, but officials have not yet committed to another attempt to launch the uncrewed test flight to the moon at the next opportunity Sept. 27.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin were joined by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio for launch Wednesday to begin a six-month expedition on the International Space Station. The crew lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:54 a.m. EDT (1354 GMT) aboard a Soyuz rocket, and docked with the space station at 1:06 p.m. EDT (1706 GMT).
NASA’s launch team says they got a hydrogen leak under control in a fueling line near the bottom of the Artemis 1 moon rocket’s core stage, allowing engineers to continue with a cryogenic tanking test on pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. The leak temporarily halted operations to load more than 750,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the Space Launch System.
Engineers are ready to reload NASA’s Artemis moon rocket with supercold fuel Wednesday to make sure a repaired liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting is leak free, one of two requirements that must be met before the agency can make a third attempt to launch the huge booster September 27 on the program’s maiden moonshot.
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