Search Results for “date” – Page 339

Satellite comes back to life, deploys solar sail on second try

June 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

Mission managers say the shoebox-sized LightSail satellite powered up its tiny deployment motor Sunday, and data from the diminutive spacecraft indicate its experimental solar sail unfurled in orbit hundreds of miles above Earth.

Ground team battling on-and-off communications with LightSail

June 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

After an up-and-down week of intermittent contact with the LightSail satellite, the tiny spacecraft radioed home Saturday, giving engineers hope to deploy the experiment’s solar sail as soon as Sunday.

Canada backs ISS extension to 2024, gains two crew slots

June 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

The Canadian government announced Tuesday its intention to support the International Space Station through 2024, joining the United States and Russia as the major partners officially backing an extension of the global research project.

Launch of U.S.-French oceanography satellite postponed

June 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

The launch of a U.S.-French oceanography satellite from California has been postponed from July 22 after engineers discovered contamination in one of the spacecraft’s thrusters at its factory in France.

Progress failure probe points to linkage with Soyuz rocket

June 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

Russia says a design bug from the pairing of a Progress spacecraft with an upgraded version of the venerable Soyuz launcher led to the loss of a resupply mission bound for the International Space Station on April 28.

RD-181 engines prepared for shipment to U.S.

June 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

The first pair of RD-181 rocket engines set to launch on Orbital ATK’s redesigned Antares rocket are in the final stages of acceptance testing in Russia ahead of their export to the United States in early July, officials said.

Roscosmos: Design flaw brought down Proton rocket

June 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

Russia has blamed a design flaw in the Proton rocket’s third stage that went undetected for decades as the cause of a May 16 launch failure.

LightSail deployment set for this week

June 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft is back in contact with ground controllers after nine days of radio silence triggered by a suspected software glitch, and engineers plan to send the command to unfurl the tiny satellite’s solar sail as soon as Wednesday.

Boeing gets first order for commercial crew mission

May 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA has placed an order with Boeing for the first operational mission to ferry a crew to the International Space Station in a new era of commercial human spaceflight.

DirecTV satellites blast off on Ariane 5 rocket

May 28, 2015 Stephen Clark

An Ariane 5 rocket fired into space from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana on Wednesday, successfully delivering two television broadcast satellites into high-altitude orbits for DirecTV and Sky Mexico.