Ball Aerospace – Spaceflight Now

Coronavirus work stoppage likely to delay launch of NASA X-ray astronomy mission

July 2, 2020

A nearly three-month stoppage of on-site work due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus at NASA’s Marshall Space Fight Center in Alabama is expected to push back the launch of the IXPE X-ray astronomy satellite from May 2021 until some time later next year, a senior space agency official said.

Cygnus departs space station, deploys CubeSats

February 3, 2020

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft departed the International Space Station Friday to close out a three-month stay, then raised its orbit to release multiple experimental nanosatellites for NASA, the U.S. military and research institutions, including one that was snap-assembled by astronauts using 3D-printed parts produced on the station.

NASA uplinks final command to deactivate Spitzer telescope

January 30, 2020

NASA declared the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16-year mission complete Thursday after sending final commands for the spacecraft to enter hibernation as it drifts farther from Earth.

NASA prepares to shut down one of its ‘Great Observatories’

January 28, 2020

NASA will say goodbye to the Spitzer Space Telescope this week after more than 16 years observing the most distant galaxies ever detected, planets orbiting other stars, and star-forming clouds of dust and gas.

NASA’s first interplanetary smallsats may struggle to stay under cost caps

August 5, 2019

The first set of proposals for a new class of small robotic probes NASA wants to dispatch across the solar system came in with higher cost estimates than agency officials expected, a NASA manager said Sunday.

SpaceX wins NASA contract to launch X-ray telescope on reused rocket

July 8, 2019

NASA has selected a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — flying with a reused first stage booster — to launch the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2021, bypassing Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus rocket for the task.

Newly-released videos show SpaceX payload fairing coming back to Earth

July 3, 2019

New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship.

More photos from SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy night launch

June 30, 2019

The predawn launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center of a Falcon Heavy rocket June 25 was the first nighttime liftoff of SpaceX’s heavy-lifter, the most powerful launcher currently operational anywhere in the world. The Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters returned to Cape Canaveral less than nine minutes later.

Photos: Falcon Heavy lights up Florida’s Space Coast

June 26, 2019

The world’s most powerful operational rocket flashed to life at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) Tuesday and climbed into a moonlit summer sky from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same site where the Apollo 11 astronauts left Earth for their historic moon landing nearly 50 years ago.

Falcon Heavy launches on military-led rideshare mission, boat catches fairing

June 25, 2019

SpaceX’s third Falcon Heavy rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in a predawn launch Tuesday, delivering two dozen research and weather observation spacecraft into orbit on a marathon three-and-a-half mission for the U.S. Air Force. The mission included the successful landing of the Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters back at Cape Canaveral, and a SpaceX recovery boat netted part of the rocket’s payload fairing for the first time.