News – Page 496 – Spaceflight Now

Timeline for Ariane 5’s launch of SGDC and Koreasat 7

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

Two European-made communications satellites destined to serve the Brazilian government and commercial customers across Asia are set to ride an Ariane 5 rocket into orbit Thursday.

Ariane 5 rocket rolled to launch pad with satellites for Brazil, South Korea

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

A month-and-a-half after a general strike in French Guiana halted launch preparations, an Ariane 5 rocket arrived at its launch pad Wednesday on the northeastern coast of South America, a day before hauling two communications satellites into orbit for the Brazilian government and a South Korean company.

First aerial color photo of Mars rover’s “hole-in-one” landing site

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA has released the first high-resolution aerial color image of the Opportunity rover’s landing site on a sprawling Martian plain, where the airbag-cushioned robot fortuitously rolled into a Eagle Crater in January 2004, putting its scientific instruments face-to-face with a block of sedimentary rock that gave ground teams confirmation Mars was once a warmer, wetter, and habitable planet.

NASA probe finds Saturn ring gap emptier than predicted

May 3, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sped through a gap between Saturn and its rings for the second time Tuesday after data from the probe’s first perilous passage through the unexplored region last week found it to contain fewer potentially hazardous dust particles than expected.

SpaceX successfully boosts top secret U.S. government satellite into space

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired into space from Florida’s Atlantic coastline Monday with a clandestine payload for a U.S. government spy agency, then returned to Cape Canaveral for a pinpoint landing.

Video: Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket viewed from KSC press site

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

Check out a view of the Falcon 9 launch Monday from our camera at the Kennedy Space Center press site about three miles from pad 39A.

Watch spectacular video of Monday’s Falcon 9 blastoff and landing

May 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from the historic seaside launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday, powered a classified NRO spy satellite into space, then the launcher’s first stage descended to a vertical landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX launch scrubbed in final minute of countdown

April 30, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX scrubbed an attempt to launch a commercial Falcon 9 rocket Sunday less than a minute before liftoff, blaming a sensor issue on the vehicle’s first stage and pushing back the company’s first national security mission for the U.S. government at least 24 hours.

China’s space station plan bolstered by year of successes

April 29, 2017 Stephen Clark

A series of achievements in China’s space program over the last 12 months have set the stage to start construction of the country’s first space station in 2019, a year later than previously scheduled, officials said Friday.

Falcon 9 flight timeline for NROL-76 mission

April 29, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Sunday morning, but most of the launcher’s ascent into orbit will be under a news blackout at the request of the National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive U.S. government intelligence agency whose mission is riding on the rocket.