Tag: Japan

  • Falcon 9 flight timeline with the JCSAT 14 satellite

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    SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral early Friday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the JCSAT 14 communications satellite into orbit 32 minutes later. The 229-foot-tall rocket is poised for launch from Complex 40 at 1:21 a.m. EDT (0521 GMT) Friday at the opening of a 120-minute…

  • Stormy weather in Florida delays Falcon 9 launch

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    Updated with weather forecast. The Falcon 9 rocket slated to launch Japan’s JCSAT 14 communications satellite inside SpaceX’s hangar at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX has delayed a planned Falcon 9 launch with a Japanese communications satellite to Friday due to inclement weather on Florida’s Space Coast. The launch window is unchanged, opening at 1:21…

  • Hold-down test firing complete for next SpaceX launch

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    File photo of a Falcon 9 rocket’s static fire test at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX technicians are attaching a Japanese communications satellite to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a planned launch Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral. The JCSAT 14 communications satellite, made in California by Space…

  • Commercial Falcon 9 rocket launch scheduled for next week

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    File photo of a Falcon 9 rocket on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket launch is set for no earlier than May 5, sources said Friday, with a Japanese television broadcasting satellite heading to orbit from Cape Canaveral. The two-stage booster was scheduled to roll out of SpaceX’s…

  • Japan gives up on rescuing black hole observatory

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    Artist’s concept of Japan’s Hitomi satellite. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita Japan’s space agency says it has ceased efforts to rescue a failed X-ray astronomy satellite after it spun out of control and broke apart in orbit, declaring the nearly $400 million mission lost two months after its launch. Controllers on the ground lost contact with the…

  • Attitude control failures led to break-up of Japanese astronomy satellite

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    Artist’s concept of Japan’s Hitomi satellite. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita Japan’s Hitomi X-ray observatory was beset by a series of attitude control problems March 26 that caused the satellite to spin out of control and shed sizable chunks of its power-generating solar panels or deployable telescope, according to engineers analyzing fragments of telemetry data sent to…

  • U.S. military rules out collision as cause of Hitomi satellite’s woes

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    The Hitomi satellite is seen Nov. 27 at a press day held before its launch. Credit: JAXA As Japanese ground controllers struggle to restore communications with a tumbling space telescope in orbit, the U.S. military’s space surveillance experts have eliminated one cause for the satellite’s troubles. A military spokesperson told Spaceflight Now in an email…

  • Japan’s newest space telescope goes silent

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    Updated on March 28. Artist’s concept of the Hitomi observatory. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita Japan has lost contact with the newly-launched Hitomi space telescope, and ground observations indicate the satellite has shed debris and may be tumbling in orbit more than 350 miles above Earth. Ground controllers lost contact with the Hitomi black hole observatory at the…

  • Photos: H-2A rocket soars on groundbreaking astronomy mission

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    Burning a mixture of super-cold liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and pre-packed solid propellant, Japan’s H-2A rocket vaulted into a deep blue evening sky over the beaches of Tanegashima Island on Wednesday with a satellite that will see the surroundings of black holes better than ever before. The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) rocket blasted off at 0845 GMT…

  • Black hole observatory launched from Japan

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    The H-2A rocket flies into the sunset sky over the Tanegashima Space Center at 0845 GMT (3:45 a.m. EST; 5:45 p.m. local time). Credit: JAXA Japan launched a pioneering observatory with X-ray vision Wednesday to peer into the mysterious, light-starved neighborhoods around black holes and study the genesis of galaxies and other cosmic mega-structures billions…