Launching for the 200th time and loaded with one of its heaviest cargoes ever, the Atlas-Centaur rocket flexed its muscle and sped away from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday night with a U.S. Navy satellite for mobile communications to the military and White House.
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.
SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk has shared images of the Falcon 9 booster’s crash landing on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean after the rocket’s successful Jan. 10 liftoff with supplies for the International Space Station.
This photo gallery shows the U.S. Navy’s third Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite being encapsulated in the rocket’s nose cone and being lifted atop the Atlas-Centaur vehicle. Liftoff is planned for Jan. 20.
Up to 24 launches are planned from Cape Canaveral in 2015, thanks to jam-packed manifests for SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to send up satellites for the U.S. military, NASA and commercial telecom operators.
There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.
Navigation satellites, communications spacecraft, classified missions, NASA science projects and the Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo ship destined for the International Space Station are on the United Launch Alliance manifest for the new year.
A record number of Atlas 5 launches, the return of Delta 2 and a Delta 4-Heavy at the dawn of a new space exploration era highlighted 2014 for United Launch Alliance.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket put on a display of power, sound and light Friday evening at Vandenberg Air Force Base in launching a clandestine national security payload, then successfully debuted a new upper stage engine as it flew over the horizon.