SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 3:46 a.m. PST (6:46 a.m. EST; 1146 GMT) Friday, carrying the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite into orbit for NASA and the French space agency CNES. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster returned to the California launch base for landing.
The first two spacecraft in an 11-satellite refresh of SES’s Medium Earth Orbit O3b internet constellation are poised to rocket into space from Cape Canaveral on Friday, less than two weeks after shipment to the Florida spaceport from a Boeing factory in California already fully fueled and integrated for launch.
A Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship docked to the International Space Station spewed particles of an unknown substance, presumably coolant fluid, into space Wednesday night, forcing two Russian cosmonauts to call off a planned spacewalk as engineers on the ground scrambled to determine the source and the effects of the leak.
A European Ariane 5 rocket fired off a launching stand Tuesday in tropical South America with the vanguard of a modernized series of weather satellites to improve storm forecasts for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and two Intelsat television broadcasting satellites to cover the United States, a heavyweight payload totaling 12 tons.
The first in a new generation of European weather satellites is set for launch Tuesday on a mission that promises to improve the timeliness and precision of weather forecasts for Europe and Africa, sharing a ride to space from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket with two Intelsat communications satellites.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft parachuted to a gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean Sunday west of Baja California, ending an unpiloted test flight to the moon that spanned 25-and-a-half days and 1.4 million miles, proving out a new rocket and capsule to carry astronauts back to Earth’s celestial companion.
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