Category: Launches
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The Re-usable Rocket Era approaches
While SpaceX have yet to successfully land a Falcon 9 first stage it appears their vision has spurred the industry to react with both United Launch Alliance (ULA) and now Airbus Aerospace announcing plans to include re-usable components in future rocket designs. The three companies have quite different plans to achieve the re-use. SpaceX – Plan…
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Atlas V launches military’s X-37B space plane
Following a smooth countdown today United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V launched the military’s X-37B space plane. The rocket lifted off from SLC-41 and carried the space plane to orbit before deploying it, the rocket also carried a secondary payload of Cubesat’s including The Planetary Societies LightSail test. The Planetary Society is currently raising money…
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Russia suffers second launch failure in 2 weeks
An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton-M rocket lifted off from Pad 39 in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan early this morning carrying a Mexican communications satellite (MexSat-1). The initial part of the flight appeared to be nominally however at approximately 500 seconds something went wrong on the rocket’s third stage resulting in the loss of the satellite. The…
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Blue Origin Launches New Shepard
Blue Origin completed the first test flight of there New Shepard rocket yesterday, the New Shepard rocket uses their BE-3 engine which recently completed testing. The rocket is design to be fully re-usable, unfortunately they were not able to recover the main stage this time due to a hydraulic issue after the crew capsule was…
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Progress 59 Out of Control
Following the successful launch yesterday morning mission control has not been able to regain control of the progress M-27M vehicle which at one point was seen spinning out of control on the third pass of ground stations. Mission control have informed the station that there will be no docking attempt on Thursday which was the backup…
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Progress 59 Launches
Russia launched the next Progress re-supply vehicle to the International Space Station early this morning the launch and deploy to orbit was successful, however the Progress M-27M spacecraft suffered a glitch once in orbit resulting in mission control deciding to use the two day flight plan instead of the six hour which had become common practice.…
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SpaceX launches TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat satellite
SpaceX has completed their 5th launch of the year with the delivery of the TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat satellite to orbit. The launch was delayed several weeks to allow SpaceX time to investigate issues they found with Helium bottles back at the factory and to allow the CRS-6 mission to take off on time. With this launch SpaceX…
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ULA announces new Launch System
Today United Launch Alliance announced there next generation launch system named Vulcan. ULA’s Tory Bruno announced that the new launch system will be rolled out in multiple steps. The first step will be the replacement first stage, followed later by a new upper stage. The first stage of the rocket will be powered by two…
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ISS One Year Mission begins
The first one year mission on the International Space Station begun this afternoon with the launch of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Following a smooth countdown the three crew members Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko of the Russia Federal Space Agency and Scott Kelly of NASA lifted off at 3:42 p.m. EDT. Once…
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Delta 4 launches latest GPS satellite
In the first of six launches scheduled over the next four days a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta 4 lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying the latest Global Positioning Satellite (GPS). The satellite is the ninth Block 2F to be launched and was successfully placed into orbit following the on-time launch. Below are some screen…