Tag: commercial-space
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Made in Space wins NASA contract to 3D-print satellite structures in orbit
NASA awarded a $73.7 million contract Friday to the California-based startup Made in Space for a 3D-printing demonstration using a free-flying small satellite to additively manufacture solar array beams in space. Made in Space’s satellite mission, named Archinaut One, will have the ability to 3D-print its own structures in orbit. The small satellite is…
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Firefly to build U.S. version of Israeli Beresheet lunar lander
Artist’s illustration of the Genesis lunar lander. Credit: Firefly Aerospace Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company which is already developing a small satellite launcher, has signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries to build lunar landers in the United States and carry NASA science instruments to the moon, officials announced Tuesday. The agreement will permit Firefly…
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Drop test moves Virgin Orbit closer to first satellite launch
A full-scale mock-up of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket falls away from a modified Boeing 747 carrier jet Wednesday over the Mojave Desert of California. Credit: Virgin Orbit A full-scale model of Virgin Orbit’s air-dropped small satellite launcher, filled with water and antifreeze instead of rocket fuel, fell away from the wing of a modified Boeing…
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Commercial satellite images historic Apollo launch pads
Launch pad 39A is now used by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket launches. In this view captured Monday, the strongback transporter structure is seen in the horizontal position at pad 39A, with a U.S. flag waving from the fixed service structure, a tower originally built for the space shuttle and modified for…
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SpaceX wins NASA contract to launch X-ray telescope on reused rocket
File photo of a Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: SpaceX NASA has selected a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — flying with a reused first stage booster — to launch the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in…
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Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage deliver 33 satellites to three different orbits
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off at 0541 GMT (1:41 a.m. EDT) Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia. Credit: Roscosmos A new Russian weather satellite, a CubeSat to test a Silicon Valley startup’s water-based propulsion system, and eight more members of Spire’s commercial fleet of nanosatellites were among 33 spacecraft that rode a Soyuz…
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Live coverage: Soyuz rideshare mission lifts off from Vostochny Cosmodrome
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia with 33 satellites on-board. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. The Russian webcast of the launch will begin at 0440 GMT (12:40 a.m. EDT), and will be available on this page.
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Russian Soyuz launcher set to carry 33 satellites into orbit
Russian ground teams prepare to encapsulate the mission’s 33 satellite payloads, and their Fregat upper stage, inside the payload fairing of the Soyuz-2.1b booster at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Credit: Roscosmos A Soyuz rocket is scheduled for liftoff Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s newest launch site, with 33 satellites from 12 countries on-board to collect…
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Newly-released videos show SpaceX payload fairing coming back to Earth
New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship. In one of the videos, tweeted by SpaceX,…
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More photos from SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy night launch
The predawn launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center of a Falcon Heavy rocket June 25 was the first nighttime liftoff of SpaceX’s heavy-lifter, the most powerful launcher currently operational anywhere in the world. The Falcon Heavy lifted off from pad 39A at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) with two dozen research, technology demonstration and weather…