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Atlas V Pierces into Vandenberg Fog on first West Coast Interplanetary Mission
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket (AV-078) launched from Space Launch Complex 3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 11:05 UTC on May 5, 2018 with NASA’s InSight Mars Lander and two MarCO CubeSats
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Chinese Long March 3B Launches APStar-6C Communications Satellite
China was back in action on Thursday, conducting a rare commercial launch of a Long March 3B rocket with the APStar-6C communications satellite for APT Satellite Holdings
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Blue Origin’s New Shepard Reaches new Heights in latest Test Flight
Blue Origin returned to its West Texas testing grounds on Sunday for the eighth flight of its reusable New Shepard launch system – reaching new heights in a test designed to expand the vehicle’s operational envelope
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Sentinel-3B Land & Ocean-Sensing Satellite Delivered to Orbit by Russian Rockot Booster
Europe’s Copernicus Earth Observation Constellation welcomed its seventh member on Wednesday after the Sentinel-3B ocean- and land-sensing satellite received a smooth ride to orbit atop a Russian ballistic-missile-turned-space-launcher.
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Sentinel-3B Satellite to Join Copernicus Constellation via Launch on Rockot Booster
Europe’s Copernicus satellite fleet is gearing up for the arrival of its next addition on Wednesday with a Russian Rockot booster set to blast off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 17:57 UTC with the Sentinel-3B multi-function satellite.
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Falcon 9 Lifts TESS Exoplanet Hunter to Survey Earth’s Cosmic Neighborhood for Habitable Worlds
NASA’s search for Earth-like planets around other stars took one major step forward Wednesday night when the agency’s TESS exoplanet hunter received a smooth ride into a high-energy transfer orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9
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Russia’s 2nd Blagovest Military Communications Satellite Blasts off on First Proton of 2018
The thunder of Russia’s Proton rocket returned to the Baikonur Cosmodrome Wednesday night for the first time in seven months when the former workhorse of the Russian space program soared into the pre-dawn skies over the Kazakh launch site on a military mission.
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Muscly Atlas V Rumbles off from Florida on Direct Geostationary Delivery with CBAS & EAGLE
The most powerful version of ULA’s Atlas V rocket – sporting five Solid Rocket Boosters for maximum thrust off the pad – soared into sunset on Saturday after blasting off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral with a pair of U.S. Air Force Satellites.
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Secretive X-37B Space Plane Discovered in Orbit after Staying Hidden for 218 Days
It circled the Earth in obscurity for more than half a year, now the X-37B OTV-5 space plane has been conclusively identified by amateur satellite observers in a circular orbit 356 Kilometers in altitude.
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Impressive PSLV Night Launch Sends Replacement Craft for India’s Navigation Constellation to Orbit
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully sent the IRNSS-1I navigation satellite into orbit on Wednesday after an impressive nighttime liftoff from the country’s Satish Dhawan Space Center.
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Chinese Surprise Launch Lifts Yaogan-31 Electronic Reconnaissance Satellite Trio
China pulled off a completely secretive space launch on Tuesday, firing into orbit a trio of naval reconnaissance satellites and a small technology test satellite via a Long March 4C rocket.
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Ariane 5 Blasts Off at Sunset on Heavy-Haul with Japanese & U.S.-Built Communications Satellite Pair
Loaded with a payload mass of over ten metric tons, Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket pierced into the twilight haze over French Guiana on Thursday on a flight to redeem itself after a nail-biting mission in January that saw the rocket take a wrong turn and lift its passengers into an erroneous orbit.
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Dragon CRS-14 Arrives at ISS after Textbook Rendezvous for Critical Science Delivery
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday for its second cargo delivery after having resupplied the Station back in 2016.
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Science-Laden Dragon Lifted to Orbit by 5th Expendable Falcon 9 in a Row
Still covered in soot from a previous supply run to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Falcon 9 took to the skies over Florida’s Cape Canaveral Monday afternoon – lifting a flight-proven Dragon spacecraft into orbit for a critical delivery of science gear, supplies and maintenance hardware to the orbiting laboratory as the first of at least six cargo ships inbound to the U.S. Segment of ISS this year.
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Abandoned Chinese Space Laboratory Re-Enters Harmlessly over Pacific Ocean
China’s abandoned Tiangong-1 space station met its fiery end in the early hours of Monday when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere after 2,376 days in orbit, serving as a stepping stone toward a large modular Space Station China plans to deploy in 2020.
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Falcon 9 Dispatches 5th Iridium-NEXT Group to Orbit after Morning Launch from California
A flight-proven SpaceX Falcon 9 – the eighth of its kind to take flight – leapt of its Pacific-side launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base at sunrise on Friday to loft the fifth set of Iridium-NEXT communications satellites into orbit and take the largest constellation upgrade in history one step closer to the finish line.
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