Tag: SpaceX
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Falcon 9 conducts Static Fire test ahead of CRS-15 mission
SpaceX is preparing to return to launch action with the CRS-15 Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS). A key milestone towards next Thursday’s launch was the Static Fire test, that took place on Saturday at Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40. This latest mission is set to take place just under a month since a Falcon…
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SpaceX plans new facilities at KSC to support more launches, landings
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s new launch and landing control center. Credit: SpaceX/NASA An airport-like viewing tower standing up to 30 stories tall is the centerpiece of SpaceX’s planned rocket refurbishment and operations base proposed for vacant land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Information published in a draft environmental assessment prepared by KSC officials…
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Night launch: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sends SES-12 telecom satellite into orbit
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sends the SES-12 satellite into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (SpaceX via YouTube) News Brief: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the SES-12 telecommunications satellite into orbit tonight in a no-drama night launch. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida came at 12:45 a.m. ET…
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Falcon 9 conducts SES-12 night launch from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX launched their sixth mission for telecommunications giants SES. The launch, using a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket to deploy the SES-12 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit, occurred at 00:45 Eastern on Monday, departing from SLC-40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch of SES-12, SpaceX’s eleventh mission of the year, continues a…
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New photos illustrate progress in SpaceX’s fairing recovery attempts
One-half of the payload fairing from a May 22 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket parachutes into the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles south of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Credit: SpaceX Photos released by SpaceX this week show how close the company’s payload fairing retrieval ship got to catching two halves of a…
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SpaceX’s prototype internet satellites are good enough for gaming, Elon Musk says
A camera mounted on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket shows the deployment of two prototype Starlink satellites in February. (Elon Musk via Twitter) It’s been three months since SpaceX launched the first prototype satellites for its Starlink broadband internet network, and there’s been precious little information about what they’re up to. Until today. Responding to a…
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SpaceX propulsion guru Tom Mueller looks ahead to Raptor rocket engines for Mars
Tom Mueller, SpaceX’s propulsion chief technology officer, meets his fans at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) LOS ANGELES — SpaceX’s success owes a lot to the tenacity of the company’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, but some of the credit has to go to the guy who designed the…
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Falcon 9 launches Iridium NEXT 6 and GRACE-FO
SpaceX conducted its tenth launch of the year Tuesday, deploying five commercial Iridium communications satellites and the GRACE Follow-On Earth science mission for NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences. The flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base at 12:47:48 local time (19:47 UTC). The dual-satellite GRACE Follow-On mission,…
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SpaceX launches gravity-mapping probes plus another five Iridium telecom satellites
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. (SpaceX via YouTube) A refurbished SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sent two gravity-mapping satellites and five satellites for Iridium’s next-generation telecommunications network into orbit today on its second go-round. The soot-smudged first-stage booster previously flew in January to launch Zuma — a secret national security…
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SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell sees satellites as bigger market than rockets
SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, talks about the company’s future financial frontier. (CNBC via YouTube) SpaceX is taking a commanding role in the rocket business — but Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, expects the satellite business to be more lucrative. Shotwell sized up SpaceX’s road ahead in a CNBC…