Tag: Electric Propulsion
-
Israeli moon lander hitches ride on SpaceX launch with Indonesian comsat
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaks into a starry sky Thursday night. Credit: SpaceX An Israeli-built moon lander aiming to become the first privately-funded mission reach another planetary body rocketed away from Cape Canaveral on Thursday night aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, riding piggyback with an Indonesian communications spacecraft and an experimental U.S. Air Force…
-
Live coverage: Falcon 9 rocket blasts off with Israeli moon lander, Indonesian comsat
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with the Indonesian Nusantara Satu communications satellite, the Beresheet lunar lander for SpaceIL, and the S5 space surveillance satellite for the Air Force Research Laboratory. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. SpaceX’s…
-
Falcon 9 launch set for Thursday at Cape Canaveral
The Nusantara Satu spacecraft, topped with the Beresheet lunar lander and the U.S. Air Force’s S5 space situational awareness satellite, is pictured before encapsulation inside the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SSL SpaceX is set to end a two-month launch drought at Cape Canaveral with a blastoff Thursday night carrying a…
-
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft runs out of fuel in the asteroid belt
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft ran out of fuel Wednesday and stopped transmitting to Earth, ending an 11-year mission that explored the two largest objects in the asteroid belt and set several records in the annals of space history. Dawn failed to contact controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California during an overnight communications opportunity late…
-
Ariane 5 launches two satellites on 7-year voyage to Mercury
Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – JM Guillon A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun’s gravitational…
-
Photos: BepiColombo stacked for launch to Mercury
The BepiColombo spacecraft is pictured in launch configuratin shortly before stacking atop the Ariane 5 rocket in French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin Ground crews at the Guiana Space Center in South America have spent the last few months preparing the BepiColombo spacecraft, a tandem mission with European…
-
Live coverage: Probe heading to Mercury blasts off from French Guiana
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Ariane 5 rocket with the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter. [tabby title=”Arianespace Webcast”] [tabby title=”ESA Webcast”] [tabbyending] The European Space Agency’s live video webcast will begin approximately 30 minutes before launch…
-
Boeing leads $3M round to boost Accion Systems’ electric space propulsion system
An artist’s conception shows Accion Systems’ electrospray thruster chips (in gold) arranged in a propulsion array on a satellite. (Accion Systems Illustration / Zina Deretsky) Boeing’s venture capital fund is leading a $3 million investment round for Accion Systems, a Boston-based startup whose electric propulsion system for satellites could get its next in-space test early…
-
SpinLaunch raises $40M from Airbus, Google and others for space catapult
SpinLaunch’s hangar is home to a vehicle that’s designed to be launched from a catapult. (SpinLaunch Photo) A stealthy Silicon Valley startup called SpinLaunch says it’s raised a total of $40 million from a high-profile array of investors to get a space catapult system ready for launch by 2022. The company, founded in 2015 by…
-
Zunum Aero strikes deal with JetSuite for debut of hybrid electric airplanes in 2022
An artist’s conception shows Zunum Aero’s hybrid-electric airplane in JetSuite’s livery. (Zunum Aero Illustration) Zunum Aero says its first hybrid-to-electric airplanes will wear the colors of JetSuite, a private aviation company that’s a partner of JetBlue Airways. Kirkland, Wash.-based Zunum Aero, which has financial backing from JetBlue Technology Ventures as well as Boeing HorizonX and…