Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser mastered a critical Approach-to-Landing Test this weekend at California’s Edwards Air Force Base, coming four years after a similar test ended up with the winged space plane somersaulting into the desert sand due to one of two main landing gear failing to deploy.
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The penultimate Delta II rocket stands ready for an early morning liftoff from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on Tuesday with the first operational satellite of the Joint Polar Satellite System, the next generation of low-orbiting weather satellites operated by NASA and NOAA.
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An Antares rocket thundered off from Virginia’s Eastern Shore Sunday morning after a year-long break, carrying into orbit the eighth operational Cygnus cargo spacecraft headed to the International Space Station with over three metric tons of science gear, maintenance hardware and crew supplies.
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The launch of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket carrying the company’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft had to be scrubbed at the last minute on Saturday due to a rogue aircraft entering the closed airspace around NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.
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Orbital ATK is gearing up for the company’s second Cygnus mission of the year, targeting liftoff atop an upgraded Antares 200-series rocket Saturday morning from the Wallops Flight Facility.
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A European Vega rocket lit up the night over the French Guiana coast line on Tuesday, blasting off with a high-resolution communications satellite built by a European industry consortium for operation by the Kingdom of Morocco as a sharp eye in the sky for civilian benefits like environmental monitoring and mapping while doubling as a national security tool in border and coastal surveillance.
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A Chinese Long March 3B rocket lifted off from the country’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center around 11:44 UTC on Sunday, embarking on a multi-hour climb into an orbit over 21,000 Kilometers in altitude to dispatch a pair of Beidou-3 navigation satellites to join China’s global navigation satellite system currently undergoing deployment.
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SpaceX carried out its third Falcon 9 launch on Monday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to deploy the KoreaSat 5A multipurpose satellite into a high-energy transfer orbit for South Korean operator KT Sat.
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SpaceX successfully completed the Static Fire Test of a Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday atop the company’s Kennedy Space Center launch pad in preparation for the rocket’s 16th launch of the year
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A series of three Extravehicular Activities concluded on Friday with another very successful spacewalk outside the International Space Station that finished repairing the Station’s robotic arm for upcoming visiting vehicle captures and external maintenance operations.
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Blue Origin conducted its first hot fire test of the company’s BE-4 engine, hoped to become the future workhorse for Blue’s own New Glenn heavy-lift launch vehicle as well as United Launch Alliance’s upcoming Vulcan rocket
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The Expedition 53 crew aboard the International Space Station is gearing up for the third and last in a series of spacewalks planned this month to complete repair work on the Space Station’s robotic arm and deal with broken cameras and other outfitting tasks on the exterior of the complex.
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Lifting a classified satellite in the interests of U.S. National Security, ULA’s Atlas V rocket lit up the night skies over Florida’s Atlantic Coast on Sunday – finally getting off the ground on its fifth launch attempt.
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Coming back from a rare ignition abort two days ago, Russia’s Soyuz rocket shot into clear skies over the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Saturday with the Progress MS-07 cargo spacecraft headed to the International Space Station with fresh supplies for the six crew members in orbit.
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A Russian ICBM-turned-space-launch-vehicle lifted off from a remote Cosmodrome north of Moscow on Friday, boosting into orbit a satellite joining the world’s largest environmental monitoring constellation.
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Russia’s Soyuz rocket suffered a rare ignition abort on Thursday, preventing the Progress MS-07 cargo resupply craft from launching on a new fast-track rendezvous with the International Space Station that had been planned for demonstration in preparation for faster crew flights to the orbiting laboratory on future Soyuz missions.
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SpaceX successfully launched its third re-flown Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, lifting off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at sunset with the SES 11 broadcasting satellite.
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