Tag: Launch
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Falcon 9 launch timeline with Telstar 19 VANTAGE
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Telstar 19 VANTAGE communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket is poised for launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:50…
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Launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe rescheduled for Aug. 6
Parker Solar Probe sits inside a clean room at the Astrotech spacecraft processing facility in Titusville, Florida. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman The launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, on the verge of kicking off a seven-year mission culminating in passages through the sun’s atmosphere, has been delayed to Aug. 6 to resolve a technical…
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Video: SpaceX rocket lights engines in pre-flight test
Video credit: Steven Young/Spaceflight Now Passing a major pre-flight milestone ahead of a launch and landing planned early Sunday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited its main engines Wednesday for a hold-down firing at Cape Canaveral. The static fire test occurred at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) on Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad, with…
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Falcon 9 rocket test-fired for weekend launch
A plume of exhaust rises from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad after ignition of the Falcon 9 rocket’s main engines during a static fire test Wednesday. Credit: Steven Young/Spaceflight Now Nine Merlin engines on the first stage of SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket briefly fired up on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Wednesday, and…
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Rapid-fire engine tests raise hopes for DARPA’s planned reusable spaceplane
The Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-22 engine is test-fired June 27 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Credit: NASA A series of unprecedented back-to-back test-firings of a rocket engine originally developed for NASA’s space shuttle concluded earlier this month, giving engineers data crucial to achieving rapid 24-hour turnarounds planned for a U.S. military-funded reusable winged booster…
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Live coverage: SpaceX’s second upgraded “Block 5” booster test-fired in Florida
Live coverage of SpaceX’s preparations for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad with the Telstar 19 VANTAGE communications satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Spaceflight Now Members can watch a live view of the launch pad. Become a member and support our coverage. Follow us on Twitter.
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Blue Origin performs high-altitude test of crew escape motor
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) after the test flight. Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard booster launched Wednesday on an uncrewed test flight, sending a capsule on a brief jaunt into space over West Texas to demonstrate a key safety feature for space tourists and scientists riding on the company’s future rockets. Blue…
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Scotland site selected as launch base for Lockheed Martin, Orbex
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated July 17 with Rocket Lab statement. Artist’s concept of a rocket lifting off from the U.K.’s first vertical orbital launch site in northern Scotland. Credit: Lockheed Martin Two companies — U.S. aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and British start-up Orbex — seeking to carve out a share of the burgeoning small satellite launch market…
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Relive the Progress MS-09 freighter’s expedited journey to space station
Russia’s Progress MS-09 cargo craft made a 3-hour, 40-minute trip from a launch pad in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station on Monday, setting a record for the quickest journey to the orbiting research laboratory. The achievement could set the stage for less-than-four-hour rendezvous profiles for future station crews riding on Soyuz capsules. Russian engineers…
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Chinese navigation satellite deployed by Long March rocket
A Long March 3A rocket lifts off from the Xichang space center with China’s newest Beidou navigation satellite. Credit: Xinhua China launched its second space mission in less than 24 hours Monday, sending a Beidou navigation satellite toward an orbital perch around 22,000 miles above Earth. The Beidou navigation lifted off on top of a…