SpaceX has delayed the launch of the SES 12 communications satellite until shortly after midnight Friday at Cape Canaveral, allowing teams additional time to complete pre-launch vehicle checks and wait for improved weather conditions. The launch, which was previously set for Thursday, is expected around 12:29 a.m. EDT (0429 GMT) Friday.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Tuesday with five communications satellites for Iridium’s commercial voice, data relay, and tracking network, and a pair of U.S.-German research craft to probe Earth’s climate and water cycle. Launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, occurred at 12:47 p.m. PDT (3:47 p.m. EDT; 1947 GMT).
Three days after launching from the Virginia coastline, an Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship completed its final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday with more than 7,000 pounds of cargo and experiments. The automated freighter was captured by the station’s robotic arm at 5:26 a.m. EDT (0926 GMT).
SpaceX launched the first of the company’s upgraded generation of Falcon 9 launchers, known as Block 5, from the Kennedy Space Center on Friday at 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT). The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite, and SpaceX recovered the rocket’s first stage on a vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.
A SpaceX Dragon capsule is wrapping up a month-long mission Saturday. The spaceship departed the International Space Station at 9:23 a.m. EDT (1323 GMT), and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at approximately 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) with nearly two tons of experiment specimens and hardware, including a habitat of mice and Robonaut 2, an experimental humanoid robot in need of repairs.
A European environmental satellite designed to monitor Earth’s oceans, lakes and vegetation lifted off Wednesday aboard a modified Russian ballistic missile originally built to carry nuclear warheads. The mission launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome around 500 miles north of Moscow at 1757:51 GMT (1:57:51 p.m. EDT).
SpaceX and NASA launched a planet-hunting satellite Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, two days after calling off a launch attempt to conduct additional guidance, navigation and control analyses. Liftoff occurred at 6:51 p.m. EDT (2251 GMT), and the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
With its payload shroud filled with multiple U.S. Air Force satellites heading for a high-altitude perch over the equator, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) in its most powerful configuration with five strap-on solid-fueled boosters.
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