US Air Force – Page 15 – Spaceflight Now

U.S. Air Force taps SpaceX to launch next X-37B spaceplane mission

June 6, 2017 Stephen Clark

A month after an X-37B mini-space shuttle glided to a landing on Kennedy Space Center’s runway in Florida, the U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that the spaceplane’s next mission will launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time.

U.S. military orders two more surveillance satellites to roam geosynchronous orbit

April 10, 2017 Stephen Clark

Orbital ATK started work on two more surveillance satellites for the U.S. Air Force’s geosynchronous neighborhood watch program late last year as the military aims to expand its ability to track and investigate other objects in the heavily-trafficked belt more than 22,000 miles over the equator.

Q&A with Claire Leon, director of launch enterprise directorate at SMC

March 24, 2017 Stephen Clark

The head of the launch enterprise directorate at the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Claire Leon, spoke with reporters March 15 about the military’s award of a GPS launch contract to SpaceX, and she discussed plans for more head-to-head launch contract competitions in the coming months.

SpaceX nabs GPS launch contract as Air Force opens more missions for bidding

March 18, 2017 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Air Force this week awarded SpaceX a contract to launch a Global Positioning System satellite in early 2019, concluding the second of as many as 15 competitions the military plans to run over the next year to pit SpaceX against United Launch Alliance for rights to lift defense and intelligence-gathering payloads into orbit.

Photos: Delta 4 launch views from KSC press site

December 8, 2016 Stephen Clark

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday night with the U.S. Air Force’s eighth Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite, lighting up the sky in these images taken from the nearby Kennedy Space Center press site.

Quick work saved the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission from nearby explosion

September 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

Engineers scrambled to keep NASA’s billion-dollar asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on track for its launch last week in the aftermath of an explosion a mile away at SpaceX’s launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Air Force ends effort to recover DMSP weather satellite

March 30, 2016 Stephen Clark

Attempts to restore the U.S. Air Force’s newest weather satellite to service have ended, a military spokesperson said Wednesday, cutting a planned five-year mission short less than two years after it launched.

Pentagon opens investigation into contracts with ULA

March 24, 2016 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Defense Department’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into whether the Pentagon’s contracts with United Launch Alliance were properly awarded after a former ULA executive implied the government rigged a recent procurement in favor of the company.

Engineers lose control of U.S. military weather satellite

March 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Air Force has been unable to send commands to the service’s newest weather satellite for nearly a month, and engineers are trying to determine if the spacecraft can be salvaged, officials said last week.

Falcon 9 upgrade receives blessing from U.S. Air Force

January 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Air Force on Monday certified the latest version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, featuring higher-thrust engines, enlarged fuel tanks and a super-chilled propellant mixture, for launches of the military’s most valuable satellites.