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Launch timeline for Falcon 9/Jason 3 mission

January 16, 2016 Stephen Clark

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent to orbit with the Jason 3 satellite, a joint project between European and U.S. weather agencies to monitor wave height and sea level in the world’s oceans.

Ideal weather predicted for Falcon 9 launch Sunday

January 16, 2016 Stephen Clark

Meteorologists predict mostly sunny skies, mild temperatures and light winds Sunday for the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Central Coast with a $364 million oceanography satellite for U.S. and European science institutions.

Jason 3 pre-launch news conference

January 16, 2016 Spaceflight Now

The pre-launch news conference for the Jason 3 ocean altimetry mission, scheduled for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (Membership required.)

Photos: Jason 3 oceanography satellite encapsulated

January 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

The Jason 3 oceanography satellite, a joint project between U.S. and European weather agencies, is closed up inside the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket awaiting launch from California’s Central Coast on Sunday.

Hold-down firing completed ahead of Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch

January 12, 2016 Stephen Clark

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.

Offshore barge landing targeted after next Falcon 9 launch

January 11, 2016 Stephen Clark

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.

Falcon 9’s near-term manifest coming into focus

December 13, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s launch of a cluster of communications satellites for Orbcomm, set for as soon as next weekend, holds the headlines, but the company’s Falcon 9 rocket could fly at least four times in the next two months, assuming smooth launch campaigns and no glitches.

Record-breaking Hurricane Patricia viewed from orbit

October 23, 2015 Stephen Clark

Astronauts on the International Space Station and a fleet of Earth-watching satellites caught views of Hurricane Patricia, the most powerful cyclone on record in the Western Hemisphere, after the storm exploded in strength to become a monster Category 5 hurricane Friday.

NASA to post new ‘blue marble’ pictures every day

October 19, 2015 Stephen Clark

Your daily dose of planet Earth is now just a click away, thanks to a new NASA website hosting photos looking back at the world from a small satellite stationed almost a million miles away, realizing a dream of former Vice President Al Gore nearly two decades ago.

Watch the moon transit the Earth

August 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

Spectacular views from a NOAA space weather observatory show the sunlit far side of the moon crossing the face of the Earth from a distant vantage point a million miles away.