Catching observers off guard, President Trump, in remarks before a National Space Council Meeting at the White House Monday, officially directed to Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the military, a “space force,” to ensure American dominance on the high frontier.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket fitted with five powerful solid-fueled boosters has lifted off from a seaside launch complex at Cape Canaveral with the U.S. Navy’s third Mobile User Objective System communications satellite.
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 U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane concluded its third mission, streaking through the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and gliding to an automated landing on a runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., after spending a record 675 days in orbit.
A new satellite launched Aug. 1 has joined the U.S. Air Force’s GPS navigation network to help guide everything from bombs to road trippers to their destinations, with final preparations on track to send up another GPS spacecraft at the end of October.
A robotic U.S. Air Force space plane is set to land in California as soon as this week after a secretive 22-month flight hundreds of miles above Earth.
Boeing engineers are outfitting two decommissioned space shuttle hangars at the Kennedy Space Center for the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane.