Exploring The Frontier Of Space
NASA’s first-of-its kind mission to study the violent interactions of the magnetic fields surrounding Earth got underway last night with a spectacular blastoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral AFS. The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) lifted off on time at 10:44 p.m. EDT, beginning the third of […]
Working to build a steady launch pace and shake off the impression that its rockets tend to scrub as often as they fly, today SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 on time on its first launch attempt. The milestone mission to deliver two communications satellites on the same vehicle blasted off in the foggy night […]
The second mission of 2015 for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket finally thundered into space today from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral after three days of delays due to weather and technical issues. Described as the most beautiful Falcon launch to date, the vehicle lifted off a few minutes before sunset at 6:03:32 pm […]
Blazing a trail through a cloudy California morning, a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket successfully deployed NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP spacecraft into polar orbit this morning on one of the venerable launch vehicle’s final missions. After delays this week due to strong high altitude winds, Delta blasted off at 6:22 a.m. PST […]
Just days after entering judge-ordered mediation, SpaceX and the United States Air Force announced today that they have reached a settlement agreement regarding the lawsuit SpaceX filed against the Air Force’s EELV Block Buy contract with United Launch Alliance. According to a statement from SpaceX, it would appear that ULA will not have to give […]
January 12, 2015 – An investigation team has determined that the failure of a July 2014 Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket flight from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia was linked to the installation process for the second stage igniter. The rocket was launched at 4:36 a.m. EDT, July 3, 2014, carrying a payload to […]
Marking the 200th launch for the venerable Atlas-Centaur family of rockets and 52nd Atlas V, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V thundered off the launch pad Tuesday night to deploy the third Mobile User Objective System for the United States Navy. MUOS-3 joins two existing satellites in geosynchronous orbit providing secure, reliable high-speed communications to […]
January 20, 2015 – Five rockets are on the pad and waiting to go from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. The weather and/or science conditions have not been conducive for launch to support the Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment (MTeX), Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence (MIST) mission and the Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP). The […]
January 13, 2015 – The interaction of solar winds and Earth’s atmosphere produces northern lights, or auroras, that dance across the night sky and mesmerize the casual observer. However, to scientists this interaction is more than a light a display. It produces many questions of the role it plays in Earth’s meteorological processes and the […]