The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket stands poised for flight with the Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane and a batch of CubeSats including the LightSail. The rocket was rolled to Complex 41 on Tuesday in preparation for launch on Wednesday.
The Mexican government says it will collect a $390 million insurance payout after losing an advanced communications satellite Saturday aboard a failed launch of a Russian Proton rocket.
An experiment-carrying, reusable mini space shuttle operated by the U.S. Air Force will be boosted into Earth orbit Wednesday atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
Failure struck Russia’s troubled space program for the second time in three weeks Saturday, when a Proton rocket carrying a high-tech satellite for Mexico’s new $1.6 billion space-based communications network crashed shortly after liftoff.
A Boeing-built communications satellite for the Mexican government is set for liftoff Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Proton rocket.
Already encapsulated in the 18-foot-diameter nose cone, the Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane is hoisted atop the Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.
The Air Force’s miniature space shuttle and its ride to orbit have been joined together inside an assembly building at Cape Canaveral in preparation for launch May 20.
In addition to carrying an Air Force electric propulsion thruster test, a materials research investigation sponsored by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will be flying aboard the X-37B miniature spaceplane later this month.