Tag: commercial-space
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Video: Falcon 9 joins rising moon in the sky during middle-of-the-night launch
Video credit: Steven Young/Spaceflight Now Flying with a reused first stage booster, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast early Monday with a commercial communications satellite for the Luxembourg-based operator SES. The Falcon 9 took off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT)…
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Falcon 9 launch timeline with SES 12
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the SES 12 communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket is poised for launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:29 a.m.…
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Live coverage: SpaceX rocket launches with SES 12 communications satellite
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with the SES 12 communications satellite for SES of Luxembourg. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. SpaceX’s live video webcast begins around 15 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.
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New photos illustrate progress in SpaceX’s fairing recovery attempts
One-half of the payload fairing from a May 22 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket parachutes into the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles south of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Credit: SpaceX Photos released by SpaceX this week show how close the company’s payload fairing retrieval ship got to catching two halves of a…
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SpaceX delays launch to run additional tests on rocket
File photo of a previous Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX has delayed the launch of the SES 12 commercial communications satellite from Cape Canaveral until Monday to conduct additional tests on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, officials said Thursday. The liftoff from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40…
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Blue Origin gets in on NASA studies for resource utilization on moon and Mars
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is among 10 teams that will share about $10 million in NASA funding to look into techniques for using resources from the moon and Mars. The studies are aimed at advancing…
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo completes second powered test flight
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fires its engine during Tuesday’s test flight. Credit: Virgin Galactic Helmed by two test pilots, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane set new altitude and speed records for the company’s test program Tuesday during a powered flight over California’s Mojave Desert. Tuesday’s test flight moved Virgin Galactic closer to eventually flying paying passengers…
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fires up rocket for another step toward spaceflight
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space plane fires up its hybrid rocket motor during a test flight. (MarsScientific.com and Trumbull Studios) Virgin Galactic sent its VSS Unity space plane skyward for a second supersonic rocket-powered test flight today, bringing the company one step closer toward reaching the space frontier. “It was great to see our beautiful spaceship…
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SpaceX test-fires previously-flown rocket for May 31 launch
A cloud of exhaust rises from SpaceX’s launch pad at Cape Canaveral after Thursday night’s engine firing. Credit: Spaceflight Now The nine Merlin main engines at the base of a recycled Falcon 9 rocket booster ignited Thursday night for several seconds during a pre-flight test-firing on a Cape Canaveral launch pad, clearing a major hurdle…
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Rocket Lab updates launch window for first commercial mission
File photo of an Electron rocket. Credit: Rocket Lab After a two-month delay to resolve a technical concern, Rocket Lab plans to launch its first commercial mission as soon as June 22, U.S. time, from the company’s rocket base in New Zealand, the company announced Friday. Rocket Lab has four-hour launch windows available during a…