Falcon 9 – Page 136 – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX adds abort function for Dragon cargo flights

April 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

Taking a lesson from a launch mishap last June, SpaceX wrote coded commands for future Dragon cargo capsules to deploy their parachutes for an emergency landing in the event of rocket failures, starting with Friday’s resupply flight to the International Space Station.

Timeline for the Falcon 9 rocket’s 23rd flight

April 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will go from Cape Canaveral to low Earth orbit in 10 minutes Friday with a Dragon capsule heading for the International Space Station carrying nearly 7,000 pounds of supplies and experiments.

SpaceX ready to return to the space station

April 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

Ground crews loaded time-critical experiments, including 20 mice to help scientists study muscle atrophy, into SpaceX’s commercial Dragon cargo capsule Thursday, a day before a launch planned from Cape Canaveral toward the International Space Station.

Mostly clear skies predicted for Friday’s SpaceX launch

April 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

Mostly clear skies and brisk westerly winds are forecast at launch time Friday afternoon for SpaceX’s first resupply mission to the International Space Station in nearly a year.

Videos: Previewing SpaceX’s eighth International Space Station resupply launch

April 7, 2016 Justin Ray

Watch the pre-launch news conference on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flight of the Dragon cargo craft to the International Space Station.

Static fire complete in run-up to launch of SpaceX supply ship

April 6, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX ran a Falcon 9 rocket through a customary preflight checkout Tuesday, filling it with super-cold propellants and firing its nine Merlin first stage engines in preparation for liftoff Friday on a resupply run to the International Space Station.

SpaceX hopes to sell used Falcon 9 boosters for as low as $40 million

March 31, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX intends to cut the price of a Falcon 9 rocket launch by up to 30 percent when flying with reused first stage boosters, an achievement the company still hopes to demonstrate before the end of the year, SpaceX’s president said recently.

Pentagon opens investigation into contracts with ULA

March 24, 2016 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Defense Department’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into whether the Pentagon’s contracts with United Launch Alliance were properly awarded after a former ULA executive implied the government rigged a recent procurement in favor of the company.

SpaceX hopes to raise launch tempo after space station flight

March 20, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is targeting April 8 for the launch of its first resupply run to the International Space Station in nearly a year, a mission that the company hopes will mark the start of a rapid-fire launch manifest full of payloads waiting to fly.

Jason 3 satellite begins surveying world’s oceans

March 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

Two months after its foggy blastoff from California on a Falcon 9 rocket, a $364 million oceanography satellite has returned the first data from its radar altimeter mapping global sea levels, catching this year’s ongoing El Niño in the act.