Tag: Reusability
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SpaceX plans new facilities at KSC to support more launches, landings
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s new launch and landing control center. Credit: SpaceX/NASA An airport-like viewing tower standing up to 30 stories tall is the centerpiece of SpaceX’s planned rocket refurbishment and operations base proposed for vacant land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Information published in a draft environmental assessment prepared by KSC officials…
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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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Watch a replay of the first Falcon 9 Block 5 launch
The first upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, known as the ‘Block 5’, takes flight from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on 11 May 2018. The rocket placed into orbit Bangladesh’s first communications satellite, and SpaceX successfully recovered the rocket’s first stage for reuse. Video: SpaceX
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Bangabandhu-1 sucessfully launched by first Block 5 Falcon 9 – SpaceX’s goal of affordable access to space
SpaceX has conducted the debut launch of the final variant of its powerhouse Falcon 9 rocket, the Block 5 -which will continue to further SpaceX’s already realized goal of providing low-cost, affordable access to space for countries that have not been able to afford such missions before. The mission launched from LC-39A at the Kennedy…
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Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship departs station, returns to Earth
Live coverage of the departure of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship from the International Space Station and its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with several tons of experiment samples and cargo. SpaceX and NASA will not provide live video coverage of the splashdown. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page.…
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Reused Dragon cargo carrier splashes down in Pacific Ocean
The Dragon supply ship departs the space station Saturday during an orbital night. Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev captured this view of the Dragon spacecraft during its departure. Credit: Oleg Artemyev/Roscosmos An automated SpaceX supply ship parachuted into the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, bringing more than 3,800 pounds of cargo — including a NASA robot requiring repair…
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Video: Blue Origin flies New Shepard rocket for eighth time
Video credit: Blue Origin Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster, topped with a capsule carrying a dummy dubbed Mannequin Skywalker, took off Sunday from the company’s sprawling test site in West Texas on a 10-minute trip to the edge of space and back. The hydrogen-fueled rocket lifted off from the test site near Van Horn, Texas,…
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Suborbital test flight moves Blue Origin closer to launching people
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) with new apogee number. The New Shepard booster took off from West Texas at 12:06 p.m. CDT (1:07 p.m. EDT; 1707 GMT). Credit: Blue Origin The privately-developed New Shepard booster, designed and built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin, took off from a launch…
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Blue Origin preps for suborbital test flight Sunday
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated April 29 with new launch times. Blue Origin plans its next suborbital test launch Sunday from the company’s sprawling development complex in West Texas, the company’s owner Jeff Bezos announced Friday. The single-stage New Shepard rocket is scheduled for launch at 12:42 p.m. EDT (1642 GMT; 11:42 a.m. CDT), after thunderstorms apparently…
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Watch a replay of SpaceX’s fifth launch for Iridium
A SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher rocketed into orbit Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, climbing away from a hillside launch complex just after sunrise with 10 Iridium communications satellites. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket lifted off at 7:13:51 a.m. PDT (10:13:51 a.m. EDT; 1413:51 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg. The…