Launch | Common News Update

Nov72018 by adminNo Comments

Watch live: Northrop Grumman to launch NASA's ICON satellite

Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Northrop Grumman will launch NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite just after 3:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday aboard it's air-launched Pegasus XL rocket. Pegasus will be carried by and launch from Northrop Grumman's Stargazer L-1011 airplane from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch, which will be streamed live on NASA TV, carries the ICON satellite -- the 44th launch for Pegasus. NASA announced Tuesday that the weather forecast carries a 90 percent chance for favorable launch conditions. ICON will study the dynamic zone high in Earth's atmosphere where terrestrial weather meets space phenomena. The satellite will monitor the physics of near-Earth space and provide data for stopping its negative effects on technology and communications systems. ICON is based ...

Oct192018 by adminNo Comments

Mission to Mercury: BepiColombo spacecraft ready for launch

Science

Europe and Japan are set to launch their joint mission to Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. The partners have each contributed a probe to be despatched on an Ariane rocket from French Guiana. The duo, together known as BepiColombo, are bolted to one another for the seven-year cruise to their destination, and will separate once they arrive. It's hoped their parallel observations can finally resolve some of the many puzzles about the hot, oddball planet. One of the key ones concerns the object's outsized iron core, which represents 60% of its mass. Science cannot yet explain why the planet only has a thin veneer of rocks. Bepi's high-resolution data should bring us nearer to an answer. Media playback is unsu...

Oct162018 by adminNo Comments

Watch live: ULA to launch military comms satellite on Atlas V rocket

Science

Oct. 16 (UPI) -- If weather permits, United Launch Alliance will launch the fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite into space for the U.S. Air Force a little after midnight. AEHF-4 is scheduled to launch atop an Atlas V rocket early Wednesday morning from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch window opens at 12:15 a.m. EDT, with ULA giving the launch an 80 percent chance of happening on schedule. The rocket was rolled out to the launch pad Monday afternoon, preparing the 197-foot rocket for take-off. The Atlas V 551 variant will be used for the launch, ULA said, which includes a kerosene-fueled common core booster and five solid rocket motors strapped on, as well as the Centaur upper stage and five-meter-diameter payload fairing. The first three AEHF satellit...

Oct122018 by adminNo Comments

NASA official: Tense moments but calm crew in aborted launch

Technology

NASA's chief heard one reassuring sound over the radio link after the aborted launch of a Soyuz capsule with an American and a Russian aboard. It was U.S. astronaut Nick Hague calmly relaying information in Russian to flight controllers. "My reaction was, 'things aren't going well and he's not speaking English,'" NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters Friday, after Hague and Roscosmos' Alexei Ovchinin returned to the Star City training center outside Moscow from their abruptly shortened mission. "So, in other words, he was calm, he was cool, he was collected, he was doing what he was trained to do," said Bridenstine, who was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to watch the launch. Two minutes after Hague and Ovchinin blasted off Thursday for the International Space Station, their rocke...

Oct122018 by adminNo Comments

Emergency landing astronauts to launch again in spring

Technology

The US and Russian astronaut who were forced to make an emergency landing after a rocket failure will attempt to launch again next spring. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin were forced to make an emergency landing shortly after their mission launched yesterday.It was an unprecedented mishap for the Russian space programme and a criminal investigation is now under way to determine whether safety regulations had been violated during construction.According to Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian part of the International Space Station (ISS), the flight is being planned for the spring of next year. The malfunction affected the booster rocket, which appeared to fail to separate properly. The pair are alive after they landed safely in Kazakhs...