SpaceX’s launch team ran through a traditional preflight test Monday, putting a Falcon 9 rocket through a mock countdown, loading it with propellant and briefly firing its nine engines on a launch pad in California ahead of this weekend’s liftoff with a U.S.-European oceanography satellite.
Nearly a month after nailing a landing a rocket landing at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX plans to steer the next flight of a Falcon 9 booster toward a recovery vessel in the Pacific Ocean after a Jan. 17 blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
A new spin-stabilized European weather observatory hitched a ride into space aboard an Ariane 5 rocket Wednesday, accompanying a Brazilian television broadcasting craft on a launch from French Guiana into Earth orbit.
A Brazilian television broadcasting satellite and Europe’s next weather observatory packaged atop an Ariane 5 rocket lifted off at 2142 GMT (5:42 p.m. EDT) Wednesday from Kourou, French Guiana.
An Ariane 5 rocket launch with a Brazilian television broadcasting satellite and a European weather observatory has been rescheduled for July 15 after technicians double-checked one of the spacecraft for oil contamination.
An international oceanography satellite arrived at its California launch base from a factory in France on Thursday for fueling, testing and other final preps before its scheduled Aug. 8 blastoff on a Falcon 9 rocket.
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.