Tag: Guiana Space Center

  • Thales, Arianespace win repeat business with O3b

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    Artist’s concept of O3b satellites in orbit. Credit: Thales Alenia Space Armed with $460 million in fresh financing to grow its broadband communications capacity, O3b Networks has selected Thales Alenia Space to build eight new satellites and Arianespace to launch at least four of them aboard a Soyuz rocket in 2018. The contracts will allow…

  • Soyuz booster pointed skyward for Galileo launch

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    One day after a Soyuz crew transport rolled out to a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a similar Russian booster made a comparable journey Monday halfway around the world in tropical French Guiana for liftoff Thursday with two European Galileo navigation satellites. Missing its payload and Fregat upper stage, the Soyuz rocket…

  • Take a last look at the Vega rocket’s middle-of-the-night liftoff

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    Europe’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, carrying high-tech thrusters and ultra-sensitive motion sensors to be used in a future gravitational wave detection mission, blasted off from French Guiana early Thursday aboard a nearly 100-foot-tall (30-meter) Vega rocket. After lifting off at 0404 GMT Thursday (1:04 a.m. French Guiana time; 11:04 p.m. EDT Wednesday), the four-stage Vega booster…

  • European probe blasts off on gravitational wave demonstration

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    Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin KOUROU, French Guiana — A solid-fueled Vega launcher fired through a low cloud deck and sped into orbit from the South American jungle early Thursday with a pioneering European spacecraft that marks a key step in a century-long quest to detect elusive gravitational waves predicted…

  • Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

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    Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket rocket with the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

  • Vega/LISA Pathfinder launch timeline

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    Follow the major events during the launch of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder gravitational probe testbed, from liftoff of its Vega rocket booster from French Guiana through deployment into its initial orbit. Credit: Arianespace T+00:00:00 – Liftoff The Vega rocket’s first stage P80 solid rocket motor ignites and powers the 98-foot-tall booster off the launch pad 0.3…

  • Finely-crafted experimental space probe ready for launch

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    Updated after launch postponement. Artist’s concept of the LISA Pathfinder probe. Credit: ESA KOUROU, French Guiana — A modest European-built spacecraft tuned to test the delicate, cutting edge technologies required to detect gravitational waves, a measurement that scientists say could yield unforeseen discoveries about the universe, is awaiting liftoff aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket this…

  • LISA Pathfinder launch grounded to analyze Vega upper stage

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    Updated with more details. Artist’s concept of the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft separating from the fourth stage of the Vega rocket. Credit: ESA KOUROU, French Guiana — Launch managers in French Guiana have delayed liftoff of a European gravitational probe pathfinder at least one day to study the thermal extremes the upper stage of its Vega…

  • Photos: Experimental LISA Pathfinder probe processed for launch

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    The European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, destined to test the concept of gravitational wave detection a million miles from Earth, is nearly ready for launch Dec. 2. The hexagonal spacecraft, plus a disposable propulsion module to get it to an observation post at the L1 Lagrange point, arrived at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana…

  • Vega booster crowned with gravitational probe pathfinder

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    LISA Pathfinder and its orbit-raising propulsion module were enclosed inside the Vega rocket’s payload fairing Nov. 16. Credit: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut, 2015 After criss-crossing Europe for a decade, the LISA Pathfinder satellite testbed has reached its last stop before launch in early December on a mission to demonstrate the delicate technologies required to detect elusive low-frequency gravitational…