Tag: Launch
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Chinese military imaging satellite lifts off from Jiuquan space base
A Long March 2D rocket lifted off Sunday from the Jiuquan launch center in northwest China. Credit: Xinhua A Long March 2D rocket boosted a Chinese military imaging satellite into a 300-mile-high orbit Sunday after liftoff from a remote launch base in the country’s northwestern frontier. The clandestine payload rode a two-stage, 134-foot-tall (41-meter) Long…
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Intelligence-gathering satellite deployed in orbit for Russian military
Video credit: Russian Ministry of Defense A Russian military surveillance satellite designed to monitor adversaries’ radio signals successfully launched Saturday aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The Lotos-S1 spy satellite lifted off on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket at 1043 GMT (5:43 a.m. EST) Saturday from Site 43 at Plesetsk, then turned northeast on a…
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Elon Musk says SpaceX will try to launch his Tesla Roadster on new heavy-lift rocket
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Dec. 2 with further confirmation, and details about the Roadster’s target orbit. The interstage of SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket pictured inside the company’s factory last year in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX. SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted Friday that his red Tesla Roadster will head for deep space on…
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Debut of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket now planned early next year
Artist’s illustration of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in flight. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to roll out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the first time next month for a hold-down firing of its 27 Merlin main engines, but the mega-rocket’s inaugural test launch will slip into January,…
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Three Chinese military surveillance satellites successfully launched
A Long March 2C rocket lifted off Friday with three Yaogan 30-02 satellites. Credit: Xinhua A Chinese rocket placed three experimental military surveillance satellites in orbit Friday, the second set of related triplets launched in less than two months. The satellites lifted off aboard a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang launch base in…
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Photos: Delta 2 climbs into the night from Vandenberg Air Force Base
Launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast on its third try, United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday with NOAA’s JPSS 1 polar-orbiting weather satellite. It was the 154th and second-to-last flight of a Delta 2 rocket, the workhorse for NASA’s interplanetary exploration program, climate and weather satellites, and a…
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Three video imaging satellites launched from China
Credit: New China TV A Long March 6 booster took off Tuesday from China with three Earth observation satellites designed to record high-definition video and color imagery from a perch more than 300 miles above the planet. The trio of commercial satellites launched from pad 16 at the Taiyuan space center in northeastern China’s Shanxi…
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Video: JPSS 1 weather satellite deploys from Delta 2 rocket
NOAA’s new JPSS 1 weather satellite deployed from its Delta 2 launcher in an orbit more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth nearly one hour after blasting off from California. Fully fueled with a launch mass around 5,025 pounds (2,280 kilograms), the JPSS 1 satellite is beginning a seven-year mission collecting atmospheric measurements to…
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Penultimate Delta 2 rocket launch lofts advanced polar-orbiting weather satellite
Credit: ULA/Walter Scriptunas II A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket climbed into space Saturday from California with a $1.6 billion polar-orbiting weather satellite for NOAA, the first of four upgraded observatories designed to keep vital meteorological data flowing to forecasters for the next two decades. The government-owned weather sentinel was deployed into orbit more…
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Video: Delta 2 rocket lifts off from California
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the JPSS 1 weather satellite, the first in a new line of polar-orbiting observatories for NOAA. The 128-foot-tall (39-meter) rocket climbed into the sky from Space Launch Complex 2-West at 1:47:36 a.m. EST (4:47:36 a.m. EST; 0947:36…