Lockheed Martin – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX files protest of NASA’s Lucy launch contract awarded to ULA

February 15, 2019

SpaceX has filed a protest challenging a nearly $150 million NASA contract awarded to United Launch Alliance last month to send a robotic asteroid probe into space.

Watch a spectacular slow-motion replay of last week’s Ariane 5 launch

February 11, 2019

Arianespace and CNES, the French space agency, have released sensational slow-motion video from shielded engineering cameras at the Ariane 5 rocket’s launch pad in French Guiana, showing the launcher’s fiery evening takeoff Feb. 5 with communications satellites for Saudi Arabia and India.

Arianespace opens busy 2019 manifest with dual-satellite Ariane 5 launch

February 5, 2019

Two communications satellites owned by Saudi Arabian and Indian operators rocketed into orbit Tuesday on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket, the first of up to 13 launches planned from French Guiana this year.

Live coverage: Ariane 5 launches satellites for Saudi Arabia and India

February 5, 2019

An Ariane 5 rocket launched Tuesday at 2101 GMT (4:01 p.m. EST) from French Guiana with a communications satellite to provide broadband and television services for the government of Saudi Arabia and commercial clients across Europe and the Middle East, and an Indian payload to help bridge the digital divide in South Asia.

Arianespace preps for first of up to 13 launches in French Guiana this year

February 4, 2019

A European Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled for blastoff Tuesday from a jungle launch pad in South America with two geostationary telecom payloads — one owned by a Saudi Arabian operator and built in Colorado by Lockheed Martin, and another for India’s space agency.

InSight lander completes seismometer deployment on Mars

February 4, 2019

NASA’s InSight lander has placed a protective enclosure over a French-developed seismometer designed to detect tremors on Mars, completing the deployment of the first of two science instruments delivered to the Red Planet in November.

ULA wins contract to launch NASA’s Lucy mission to visit unexplored asteroids

February 1, 2019

NASA has selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket to dispatch the Lucy spacecraft on a mission from Cape Canaveral in October 2021 to fly by seven unexplored asteroids, including six objects locked in orbits leading and trailing Jupiter, where scientists expect swarms of miniature worlds could hold clues about the formation of the solar system.

OSIRIS-REx finds rugged terrain on asteroid Bennu

January 31, 2019

Some time next year, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend to the boulder-strewn surface of asteroid Bennu, reach out with a robotic arm, and fetch a sample for return to Earth, but an initial survey of the space rock millions of miles from Earth suggests the robotic mission may have few suitable targets for the touch-and-go maneuver.

First of up to seven ULA launches this year set for Saturday

January 18, 2019

The first of up to seven missions planned on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas and Delta rocket fleets this year is scheduled for Saturday from California’s Central Coast, when a Delta 4-Heavy is set for blastoff on a spy satellite delivery flight delayed a month to troubleshoot a hydrogen fuel leak in a booster.

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 Earth-imaging satellite fails

January 7, 2019

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 commercial Earth observation satellite, which launched in 2016 for a planned 10-to-12-year mission, has suffered a failure in its control moment gyros and is no longer able to acquire high-resolution imagery, officials announced Monday.