DARPA – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

Military satellite ready for launch aboard converted Cold War-era missile

August 25, 2017 Stephen Clark

A U.S. military satellite awaiting launch Friday night from Cape Canaveral is small enough to fit on a coffee table, but it will punch above its weight, scanning a region more than 20,000 miles above Earth to catalog spacecraft movements and space junk.

Assembly complete for Minotaur launcher at Cape Canaveral

August 19, 2017 Stephen Clark

Using industrial cranes at a no-frills launch pad on the eastern tip of Cape Canaveral, a team of Orbital ATK and U.S. Air Force technicians have fully stacked a modified Cold War-era missile set for launch next week with a $49 million satellite built to track other objects in orbit.

Boeing, DARPA to base XS-1 spaceplane at Cape Canaveral

June 13, 2017 Stephen Clark

A reusable suborbital spaceplane the size of a business jet being developed by Boeing and the Defense Department’s research and development arm could be launching and landing at Cape Canaveral in 2020, officials said after the defense contractor won a competition last month to design and test the vehicle.

Budget proposal puts NASA satellite servicing mission in doubt

May 23, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA plans to shelve a robotic demonstration mission to refuel an aging Landsat Earth-imaging observatory and join forces with the private sector and a U.S. military research and development agency in a public-private partnership to commercialize satellite servicing technologies, according to language in the White House’s budget request released Tuesday.

NASA selects builder for robotic satellite servicing craft

December 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA has a builder to construct a five-ton spacecraft to catch up with the aging Landsat 7 Earth observation satellite and refuel it in 2020, employing robotic tools mastered in years of rehearsals on the International Space Station.