Vandenberg Air Force Base – Page 25

Idled by Range facility rework for months, Vandenberg ready to launch again Friday

September 14, 2016 Justin Ray

Resuming space launches from the U.S. Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after a half-year infrastructure outage, an Atlas 5 rocket will boost a commercial Earth-imaging bird into orbit on Friday.

Photos: WorldView 4 satellite’s road to launch

September 14, 2016 Justin Ray

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 commercial satellite, which will join sister-craft WorldView 3 in orbit to snap the highest quality Earth imagery available on the market at 31-centimeter resolution, was built by Lockheed Martin and will be launched Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

First two Iridium Next satellites shipped to Vandenberg

August 3, 2016 Stephen Clark

The first two next-generation Iridium satellites, designed to connect global subscribers with data and voice traffic, arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Tuesday, where they will join eight more message relay craft for launch in September on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Iridium satellites rolling off assembly line in Arizona

July 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

Construction is complete on the first batch of 81 new satellites to overhaul Iridium’s mobile communications network, and the data relay stations will soon head from their factory near Phoenix to California’s hilly Central Coast for launch Sept. 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Delta 2 rocket being assembled at Vandenberg for penultimate launch

July 12, 2016 Justin Ray

The next-to-last Delta 2 rocket is being stacked at its California launch site to take flight in January to put a civilian weather satellite into polar orbit.

Jason 3 satellite begins surveying world’s oceans

March 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

Two months after its foggy blastoff from California on a Falcon 9 rocket, a $364 million oceanography satellite has returned the first data from its radar altimeter mapping global sea levels, catching this year’s ongoing El Niño in the act.

InSight Mars lander escapes cancellation, aims for 2018 launch

March 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

The InSight Mars lander has won a reprieve from NASA’s top managers after persistent problems with one of the probe’s science instruments caused the mission to miss a narrow launch window planned for this month.

Fate of NASA’s InSight Mars mission to be decided soon

March 5, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA is close to deciding whether to spend an extra $150 million to send the InSight lander to Mars in 2018 or cancel the mission after an instrument problem made the spacecraft miss a launch opportunity this year, with a verdict on the project’s future expected within weeks, officials said.

With Russian launch grounded, Iridium flips order of satellite deployments

February 29, 2016 Stephen Clark

Stymied by Russian government dithering that has indefinitely grounded a launch on a modified Soviet-era missile, Iridium officials say that SpaceX agreed to move up to July the first of seven Falcon 9 launches from California with the company’s next-generation mobile communications satellites.

Photos: More Delta 4 launch shots

February 11, 2016 Justin Ray

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket blasts into the predawn skies at Vandenberg Air Force Base with the NROL-45 payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.