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The green light has been given to Arianespace for the dual payload Ariane 5 mission. Liftoff should occur today, Friday, November 9th, as the launch readiness review at the Spaceport in French Guiana was completed yesterday.
Read MoreThe first pan-African telecommunications satellite Rascom 1 landed at Cayenne's Rochambeau International Airport aboard an Antonov An-125 cargo jetliner and has arrived at Europe's Spaceport in preparation for Arianespace's sixth Ariane 5 mission of 2007.
Read MoreSpace Exploration Technologies Corp., otherwise known as SpaceX, conducted official ground breaking ceremonies today at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This opens a new era in commercial space operations for the company.
Read MoreThe Odyssey Launch Platform and the Sea Launch Commander have departed Sea Launch Home Port. This is all in preparation for the launch of the Thuraya-3 satellite.
Read MoreNASA’s Space Shuttle Program has successfully fired a four-segment, reusable solid rocket motor. This occurred on Thursday, November 1st, at the ATK Launch Systems Group, a test facility located in Promontory, Utah, and burned for approximately two minutes.
Read MoreThe 1,727th flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle, Moiniya, occurred last Tuesday, October 23rd, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The lift-off occurred at 8:30 a.m., Moscow time. Starsem, Arianespace and their Russian partners all report the government’s spacecraft was accurately placed in target orbit.
Read MoreThe Russian State Commission investigating the unsuccessful launch last month of a Proton vehicle carrying the JCSAT-11 satellite has determined that a damaged pyro firing cable on the interstage truss prevented the activation of the pyro bolts that were to have separated the first and second stages of the rocket. Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) and chairman of the 18-member investigative commission, announced the findings after meeting with government officials in Kazakhstan.
Read MoreLaunch service contracts for two future NASA space exploration missions have been landed by United Launch Alliance. The missions will be Landsat and Juno, scheduled to launch in 2011.
Read MoreNASA’s Launch Services Program Office has selected Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services for the Juno mission to Jupiter. This is a $190 million contract award.
Read MoreNASA has decided to delay the launch of the Dawn spacecraft. A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket’s second stage could not complete the fueling on schedule last Sunday due to inclement weather. The 24-hour delay now places the launch for Thursday, September 27, between 7:20 a.m. and 7:49 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft’s mission is to investigate the asteroid belt.
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