News Archive
Browse every article published on Spaceflight Now, from launch reports and mission previews to spacecraft development coverage. Use the filters to narrow by topic or search by keyword.
Matching Articles
1,294 articles
VideoIdled by Range facility rework for months, Vandenberg ready to launch again Friday
Resuming space launches from the U.S. Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after a half-year infrastructure outage, an Atlas 5 rocket will boost a commercial Earth-imaging bird into orbit on Friday.
Photos: WorldView 4 satellite’s road to launch
DigitalGlobe's WorldView 4 commercial satellite, which will join sister-craft WorldView 3 in orbit to snap the highest quality Earth imagery available on the market at 31-centimeter resolution, was built by Lockheed Martin and will be launched Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Quick work saved the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission from nearby explosion
Engineers scrambled to keep NASA's billion-dollar asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on track for its launch last week in the aftermath of an explosion a mile away at SpaceX's launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
Photos: Spectacular sunset launch of asteroid mission
Sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory to Asteroid Bennu, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket thunders away from Cape Canaveral Thursday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT).
Video: Post-launch news conference
An hour after OSIRIS-REx separated from the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on its trajectory to Asteroid Bennu, officials from NASA, the University of Arizona, ULA and Lockheed Martin held the post-launch news conference from Kennedy Space Center.
OSIRIS-REx probe launched to asteroid in compelling search for the origins of life
Like reaching back in time to examine the conditions that existed in the ancient solar system, NASA has launched a robotic probe to visit Asteroid Bennu and return an unspoiled sample of the primitive body that may hold the seeds of life.
Video: NASA mission launched to return sample of asteroid
The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 189 feet tall and and weighing 840,000 pounds, unleashes 1.2 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and one side-mounted booster at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) today to launch NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to Asteroid Bennu.
Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal
The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) today to send NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on a seven-year, 4.4-billion-mile mission to rendezvous with Asteroid Bennu and bring a sample of the primordial object back to Earth. Follow the mission in our live journal.
OSIRIS-REx reaches launch pad with money to spare
The scientist in charge of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission hopes to apply more than $30 million in leftover funding toward reducing the risk of the probe's touch-and-go maneuver to snag a piece of asteroid Bennu, then eventually hire more experts to analyze the primordial specimens when they return to Earth in 2023.
Photos: OSIRIS-REx on pad to begin voyage to Bennu and back
Headed to a relic from the solar system's formation over four billion years ago, NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return craft was moved to Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 launch pad today in preparation for liftoff Thursday aboard an Atlas 5 rocket en route to Asteroid Bennu hoping to find the seeds of life.