SpaceX – Page 178 – Spaceflight Now

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.

SpaceX eyes Dec. 19 for first launch since June

December 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is targeting Dec. 19 for a critical commercial launch that will double as the debut flight of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket and the company’s return-to-flight mission after a failure six months ago halted SpaceX’s busy launch manifest.

SpaceX aims to resume Falcon 9 flights in mid-December

December 2, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has shipped to Cape Canaveral the first Falcon 9 booster equipped with upgrades to haul heavier cargoes to orbit, aiming for a mid-December launch in the space transport company’s first mission since a June rocket failure grounded the Falcon 9.

Bezos-backed Blue Origin achieves rocket landing

November 24, 2015 Stephen Clark

A suborbital rocket booster built by Blue Origin, an entrepreneurial space firm founded by Internet tycoon Jeff Bezos, streaked into space in the skies over West Texas and descended to a pinpoint propulsive touchdown on a landing pad, the company announced Tuesday.

SpaceX receives firm order for its first crew flight

November 23, 2015 Stephen Clark

Fresh off a major design review, SpaceX’s human-rated Dragon spaceship has received the first of up to six firm mission orders from NASA under the company’s $2.6 billion commercial crew contract.

ULA sits out Air Force launch competition

November 16, 2015 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance said Monday it did not submit a proposal in a competition to launch a U.S. Air Force GPS navigation satellite, apparently relinquishing the contract to rival SpaceX, the only other company certified to launch the mission.

Radio bug to keep new Iridium satellites grounded until April

November 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

The first launch for Iridium’s next-generation mobile communications fleet has been pushed back four months — from December until April — to resolve a technical problem inside the spacecraft’s Ka-band communications payload.

Planning for December Falcon 9 launch, Orbcomm ships satellites

November 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

The first shipment of Orbcomm’s 11-satellite payload for the Falcon 9 rocket’s first flight since a June launch failure has arrived at Cape Canaveral, and the rest of the spacecraft will reach the Florida spaceport in the coming days, Orbcomm officials said Thursday.

NASA delays cargo award again, eliminates Boeing from contention

November 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA has delayed the award of new contracts for cargo transportation services between Earth and the International Space Station, and eliminated an uncrewed version of Boeing’s human-rated CST-100 Starliner capsule from the competition, officials said Thursday.

Orbcomm first in Falcon 9’s return-to-flight launch queue

October 18, 2015 Stephen Clark

Going with a philosophy that favors incremental testing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX officials said Friday that eleven mini-satellites for Orbcomm’s data relay business will fly on the company’s first mission since a launch failure in June.