rocket | Common News Update

May22022 by adminNo Comments

Watch live: Rocket Lab plans launch, booster catch with helicopter after days of delays

Science

ORLANDO, Fla., May 2 (UPI) -- Unfavorable weather conditions pushed Rocket Lab's 26th launch of an Electron booster to the end of last week, and the company decided to wait for Monday to take a shot at catching the rocket with a helicopter for the first time. With final checks on its recovery system under way, the company now plans for liftoff around 6:41 p.m. EDT from Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The mission, called "There and back again," will mark the first time Rocket Lab has attempted to recover one of its first stage boosters. If recovery with the helicopter is successful, the company also plans to conduct it's first booster offloading, with the aircraft dropping the rocket on to a waiting ship. "We don't usually give mother nature quite so much power over launch timing, but fo...

Mar72022 by adminNo Comments

Abandoned rocket ‘hits the Moon’ – scientists

Science

Peter BirtwhistleA discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon's far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the impact at 12:25 GMT. The three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years, but its origin was contested.At first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, and then said it was Chinese - something China denies.The effects of the impact on the Moon should have been minor.The rocket stage would have dug out a small crater and created a plume of dust.Scientists hope to get confirmation in the coming days, or weeks.The rocket part was first sighted from Earth in March 2015. A Nasa-funded space survey in Arizona spotted it, but quickly lost interest when the object was shown not to be an asteroid.The rocket part is wh...

Jun42021 by adminNo Comments

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches cargo to space station

Science

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla., June 3 (UPI) -- SpaceX launched tiny squids, medical experiments and improved solar panels for the International Space Station from Florida on Thursday afternoon. The 7,300-pound cargo mission rose into a mostly cloudy sky aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as planned at 1:29 p.m. EDT from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Eight minutes after launch, SpaceX recovered the first-stage booster by landing it on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. "We're actually flying a new booster this mission," Sarah Walker, the company's director of mission management for the Dragon capsule, said at a press conference Wednesday. "This is the 17th mission that SpaceX has launched just in this front half of 2021 ... and the first one that's on a new booster." SpaceX reuses first-stage ...

Mar312021 by adminNo Comments

Florida rocket company rebrands, plans bigger rocket

Business

ORLANDO, Fla., March 31 (UPI) -- A Florida rocket company, Rocket Crafters, has rebranded as Vaya Space and plans a new, larger rocket than it had been pursuing, now named Dauntless, according to company president Rob Fabian. Rocket Crafters -- now called Vaya -- is one of many new companies pursuing new rockets considered small or medium, and far less powerful than SpaceX's Falcon 9. Advertisement The plan for Dauntless is to lift about 2,200 pounds to low-Earth orbit, Fabian said. That's more than twice as powerful as the Intrepid rocket the company no longer pursues. The goal for Dauntless would make it roughly as powerful as Texas-based Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket, which is also under development. Vaya planned to announce the new name and rocket publicly on Wednesday. "We think ...

Mar182021 by adminNo Comments

SLS: Successful test for world’s most powerful rocket

Science

NASANasa has carried out a successful test on part of the most powerful rocket in existence - the Space Launch System (SLS).Its engines were kept running for more than eight minutes - to simulate the time that it takes the rocket to get from the ground into space.It's the second such test for the biggest segment of the SLS, after an attempt in January shut down early.The SLS is to send humans to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.The mission is part of Nasa's Artemis project, launched by the Trump administration in 2017.The test was carried out on the rocket's core stage. The SLS consists of the orange core, with its four powerful RS-25 engines, and two boosters attached to the sides. The RS-25s, built by California-based Aerojet Rocketdyne, are much the same engines that powe...