SpaceX plans to set up landing pads on abandoned launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base in a step toward the company’s vision for eventual recovery and reuse of rocket boosters.
Launching for the 200th time and loaded with one of its heaviest cargoes ever, the Atlas-Centaur rocket flexed its muscle and sped away from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday night with a U.S. Navy satellite for mobile communications to the military and White House.
The 200th Atlas-Centaur rocket, history some 52 years in the making, will blast off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral to deliver a U.S. Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit.
The preliminary weather forecast for Tuesday evening’s Atlas 5 rocket launch carrying a Navy communications satellite predicts a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions, with thick clouds the main threat against flying at 7:43 p.m. EST as scheduled.
Up to 24 launches are planned from Cape Canaveral in 2015, thanks to jam-packed manifests for SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to send up satellites for the U.S. military, NASA and commercial telecom operators.
Video highlights of the 50th Atlas 5 flight. The United Launch Alliance rocket carried the eighth Global Positioning System (GPS 2F-8) satellite for the U.S. Air Force.
Launching for the 50th time, an Atlas 5 rocket flew a milestone mission Wednesday in deploying a Global Positioning System satellite for the worldwide utility.
Launching new Global Positioning System navigation satellites at a rate not seen in 21 years, this year’s fourth such deployment is coming up at midday Wednesday, Oct. 29 by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral.
The booster rocket that will launch NASA’s next-generation Orion space capsule on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise in December has been rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.