The nation’s existing Atlas and Delta launch sites are vying for a future when United Launch Alliance completes its modernization with a new rocket system and downsizing to one pad on each coast.
With room for 11 small shoebox-sized CubeSats on the first test flight of NASA’s behemoth Space Launch System, agency officials have turned to scientists, industry and students to fill the slots in time for launch in 2018.
Blue Origin, the historically secretive rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has completed development of a new hydrogen-fueled engine and plans to begin unmanned test flights of its reusable New Shepard sub-orbital spacecraft later this year, company officials said Tuesday.
Science teams from across the United States have submitted 28 proposals for missions to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, touch the asteroid-like satellites orbiting Mars, visit unseen worlds and hunt for objects that could strike Earth one day.
Ground controllers are analyzing a fault aboard Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft after an encounter with comet dust confused the probe’s navigation system, leaving the robot explorer in a temporary safe mode and halting regular science operations.
The launch of a nearly $2 billion joint mission robotic mission to Mercury by Europe and Japan will be delayed from next year to early 2017 to account for late deliveries of critical components and scientific instrumentation, according to the European Space Agency.
NASA has extended development agreements with SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. past a March 31 deadline, giving the companies more time to complete delayed tests on commercial spacecraft intended to one day ferry astronauts into space.
Returning to the days of rollouts and launches in a span of only a few hours, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 program is looking to resume this whirlwind experience.
Three small satellites launched from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmdorome into a 930-mile-high orbit Tuesday, flying into space aboard a Rockot launcher to relay emails, technical data and other messages between remote users.