NASA rolled the Space Launch System moon rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building early Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center, moving the more than 30-story-tall launcher to safety as Hurricane Ian threatens Florida. The decision to roll the rocket back to the VAB will likely delay launch of the Artemis 1 lunar test flight until November.
NASA’s DART spacecraft made a high-speed impact with asteroid Dimorphos in an experiment to demonstrate a technique that could be used in the future to push a potentially hazardous asteroid off a track toward Earth. The spacecraft hit the asteroid nearly 7 million miles from Earth at 7:14 p.m. EDT (2314 GMT) Monday.
United Launch Alliance sent a triple-core Delta 4-Heavy with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite into orbit Saturday from California’s Central Coast, closing out a chapter in the tangled history of a launch pad originally built to support military astronaut missions on Titan rockets and space shuttles. Two more Delta 4-Heavy rockets are left in ULA’s inventory for launches in 2023 and 2024 from Cape Canaveral.
United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 3:25 p.m. PDT (6:25 p.m. EDT; 2225 GMT) Saturday with a classified spacecraft for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency. The heavy-lifter launched for the final time from California, with two more Delta 4-Heavy flights remaining from Cape Canaveral before the rocket’s retirement.
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.
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