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197 articles
One of NASA’s cleanest spacecraft ever is ready to fly
Five years after winning $1 billion from NASA to mount the first U.S. asteroid sample return mission, scientists and engineers will get their last look at the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft this week as it is closed up inside the nose cone of an Atlas 5 rocket for launch in September.

Sophisticated new U.S. weather observatory being readied for launch
On the cusp of advancing U.S. weather forecasting, a powerful new satellite was shipped from its Denver factory to the Cape today in preparation for launch in November.

Q&A with Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator
Dante Lauretta, a researcher based at the University of Arizona, leads the science team on NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission scheduled for launch Sept. 8 on a round-trip journey to asteroid Bennu.

Boeing nears fix for CST-100 Starliner design hitch
Boeing engineers are close to resolving concerns with the mass and aerodynamic shape of the company's CST-100 Starliner commercial crew carrier, and officials are optimistic the spaceship will be ready to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station in early 2018.

Video: When Juno launched to begin 5-year trek to Jupiter
Juno left the Earth atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on Aug. 5, 2011, beginning its journey to Jupiter atop the most powerful Atlas variant with five side-mounted boosters. It arrives at the gas giant on Monday.

Atlas 5 rocket gains approval to launch again after issue on last flight diagnosed
United Launch Alliance has granted "flight clearance" for its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket to resume satellite deployments after linking an errant valve with the fuel usage crunch on its most recent mission and tweaking subsequent vehicles.
VideoUnited Launch Alliance narrowing lists of suspects in rocket anomaly
The detective work into the Atlas 5 rocket's first stage performance trouble during the Cygnus cargo ship launch a week ago has implicated the fuel system as the likely culprit for using up the liquid oxygen supply too quickly.

Photos: Cygnus goes from Cape Canaveral to the space station
This collection of official NASA photographs captures the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolling to the pad on Monday, successfully blasting off Tuesday and the Cygnus freighter arriving at the International Space Station on Saturday morning.

Videos: Preparing Atlas 5 and Cygnus for trip to space station
These narrated videos show the pre-launch preparations that readied the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and the Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo-delivery spacecraft for flight and rolling to Complex 41 for liftoff to the International Space Station.

Atlas 5 forced to improvise during Tuesday’s climb to orbit
The Centaur upper stage launching the Cygnus space freighter Tuesday persevered through a velocity shortfall from the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket, improvising with a longer firing to reach the correct orbit.