Exploring The Frontier Of Space
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft returned its first new images of Pluto on Wednesday, as the probe closes in on the dwarf planet. Although still just a dot along with its largest moon, Charon, the images come on the 109th birthday of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the distant icy world in 1930. “My dad would be […]
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 […]
The Planetary Society today announced the first of its LightSail spacecraft will embark on a May 2015 test flight. Funded entirely by private citizens, the solar sail satellite will hitch a ride to space aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission will test LightSail’s critical functions, a […]
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 […]
NASA and ATK have completed installing the first Space Launch System booster qualification motor, QM-1, in a specialized test stand in Utah. The largest solid rocket motor ever built for flight, QM-1 is now being prepared for its static-fire test, which is scheduled for March 11. “Testing before flight is critical to ensure reliability and […]
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 […]