Tag: SpaceX
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Elon Musk hopes SpaceX will send humans to Mars in 2024
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s Red Dragon capsule on Mars. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s plan to send a Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018 will be the first in a sequence of unmanned commercial missions to the rust-colored world before the first voyage with humans as soon as 2024, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Wednesday. The company…
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Ride aboard the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage on descent
Take a virtual trip from space back to planet Earth with an sped up video clip showing the eye-popping on-board views from the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster Friday as it plummeted back to Earth, opened aerodynamic steering fins and fired its engines for a final braking maneuver just before touchdown. The 156-foot-tall booster…
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SpaceX Falcon 9 booster leans in for a landing at sea after launching satellite
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster stands on a drone ship after landing. (Credit: SpaceX) For the third time in a row, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster sent a payload into space and then came back for a landing on an oceangoing platform. But this time, the booster was a little shaken up. Today’s launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force…
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SpaceX logs successful late afternoon launch for Thaicom
The Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) Friday in this view from the roof the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: SpaceX A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral and climbed into space Friday, propelling a Thai television relay satellite into orbit…
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SpaceX logs successful late afternoon launch for Thaicom
The Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) Friday in this view from the roof the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: SpaceX A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral and climbed into space Friday, propelling a Thai television relay satellite into orbit…
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Photos: SpaceX prepares to launch 25th Falcon 9 rocket
A Thai communications satellite is fastened to the top of SpaceX’s 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket for launch Thursday. See photos of the Falcon 9 and Thaicom 8 being prepared for liftoff. Launch is set for 5:40 p.m. EDT (2140 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. It will take 32 minutes for the…
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SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Thaicom 8 and nails another ASDS landing
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket made its twenty-fifth flight – and its second of the month – on Friday, deploying Thailand’s Thaicom 8 communications satellite. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral was moved to Friday, following a scrub during Thursday’s window due to an issue with an upper stage engine actuator, before launching on Friday, along with another first…
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Stressing caution, SpaceX delays commercial satellite launch
Photo credit: SpaceX SpaceX scrubbed a launch Thursday to investigate a “tiny glitch” in an upper stage engine actuator on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, delaying liftoff from Florida of a Thai communications satellite at least 24 hours. The launch firm said managers delayed the launch until no earlier than Friday “out of an abundance…
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SpaceX ‘on track’ to launch astronauts in late 2017
Artist’s concept of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in orbit. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX is on schedule to fly two NASA astronauts on a test flight to the International Space Station by the end of 2017, but there is a lot of work to do to ensure the company’s new Crew Dragon spaceship is up to the…
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Falcon 9 sails through customary preflight engine firing
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited its nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday evening in a critical milestone before liftoff with a commercial Thai communications satellite later in the week. Held down by restraints at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad, the two-stage booster fired its engines for…