Mission Reports – Page 58 – Spaceflight Now

Europe’s first mission to Jupiter poised for launch from South America

April 12, 2023 Stephen Clark

The European Space Agency’s $1.7 billion robotic Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission is ready for liftoff Thursday from French Guiana, beginning an eight-year cruise to the solar system’s largest planet before becoming the first-ever spacecraft to orbit one of Jupiter’s moons in the 2030s.

Preparations underway for SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy launch

April 12, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy mission, set for April 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will launch a powerhouse bus-sized broadband satellite for Viasat into a high-altitude circular geostationary orbit, a demanding flight profile that will require disposal of all three of the rocket’s reusable boosters.

Japanese space science missions facing delays after H3 rocket failure

April 11, 2023 Stephen Clark

The launch of a Japanese X-ray telescope and robotic lunar lander has been delayed to no earlier than August, and the launch schedule for another Japanese mission to return samples from a moon of Mars is in doubt as engineers investigate the failure of Japan’s first H3 rocket last month.

SpaceX readying Starship rocket for around-the-world test flight next week

April 11, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX said Tuesday it won’t perform a final countdown dress rehearsal this week for the giant new Starship launch vehicle, and could send the rocket — standing nearly 40 stories tall on its Texas launch pad — on an around-the-world test flight as soon as next week.

SpaceX launches Intelsat satellite with NASA air quality sensor

April 6, 2023 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral shortly after midnight Friday with Intelsat 40e, a communications satellite destined to beam broadband internet signals to airplane and cruise ship passengers across North America while hosting a NASA instrument package to monitor air pollution.

NASA air quality sensor ready for launch with Intelsat satellite

April 5, 2023 Stephen Clark

A $210 million NASA mission to improve air pollution monitoring over North America is set to launch Thursday with an Intelsat communications satellite blasting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Artemis 2 commander chats with Spaceflight Now

April 3, 2023 Stephen Clark

Reid Wiseman, a veteran U.S. Navy test pilot and former chief of NASA’s astronaut corps, will lead the four-person crew assigned to the Artemis 2 mission to carry people to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Wiseman says he views the crew’s job as making sure NASA’s Orion spacecraft is ready for more demanding missions later this decade to support moon landings and assembly of a space station called the Gateway in lunar orbit.

NASA names crew for first human mission to the moon in more than 50 years

April 3, 2023 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Monday that former U.S. Navy fighter pilots Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, veteran space station astronaut Christina Koch, and rookie Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will crew the Artemis 2 mission to fly around the far side of the moon as soon as late next year, a test flight that could carry the foursome farther from Earth than any humans in history.

U.S. military begins launching satellites to counter hypersonic missile threat

April 2, 2023 Stephen Clark

The first 10 spacecraft for a planned U.S. military mega-constellation launched from California Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, setting in place the keystone for a multibillion-dollar network of hundreds of small satellites to improve defenses against hypersonic missiles and other emerging threats.

NASA set to announce crew of Artemis 2 moon mission

April 2, 2023 Stephen Clark

NASA will unveil the four crew members Monday who will fly around the moon on the first piloted flight of the agency’s Orion deep space capsule on the Artemis 2 mission as soon as late next year.