Tag: United Launch Alliance
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Upcoming Delta 4-Heavy launch back on track after payload-related delay
Delta 4-Heavy file photo. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Scriptunas Images CAPE CANAVERAL — A new launch date has been established — June 9 — for the Delta 4-Heavy rocket to carry a classified satellite into space for U.S. national security needs. Liftoff of the United Launch Alliance rocket will be possible during a five-hour…
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Delta 4-Heavy launch postponed by unspecified payload issue
NROL-37 mission poster. Credit: United Launch Alliance CAPE CANAVERAL — Payload readiness has delayed next weekend’s planned Delta 4-Heavy rocket launch for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff had been targeted for the afternoon of June 4. A new launch date has not yet been established. The NRO is the secretive government agency responsible for…
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Video: Asteroid sampler craft delivered to launch site
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the spacecraft that will grab a piece of Asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth, shipped to Kennedy Space Center from the Lockheed Martin production facilities in Denver on May 20 aboard an Air Force C-17. It was taken to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to begin pre-launch processing. Liftoff atop a United…
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NASA probe that will make round trip to asteroid and back sent to launch base
Credit: OSIRIS-REx project CAPE CANAVERAL — Equipped with a robot arm, sample collector and return capsule, NASA’s asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx probe emerged from its pristine factory and flew to the launch site in Florida this evening. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will hurl the 4,650-pound spacecraft toward Asteroid Bennu on Sept. 8 for a…
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NASA probe that will make round trip to asteroid and back sent to launch base
Credit: OSIRIS-REx project CAPE CANAVERAL — Equipped with a robot arm, sample collector and return capsule, NASA’s asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx probe emerged from its pristine factory and flew to the launch site in Florida this evening. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will hurl the 4,650-pound spacecraft toward Asteroid Bennu on Sept. 8 for a…
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First astronaut flight on Boeing capsule slips to 2018
The first piloted test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule has been delayed to early 2018 as designers wrestle with the mass of the spacecraft, aerodynamic loads the vehicle will see during launch, and new software requirements levied by NASA, company officials said. Boeing hoped to launch the first CST-100 Starliner with astronauts…
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Mixture ratio valve the culprit in Atlas 5 anomaly, next launch this summer
Photo by ULA CAPE CANAVERAL — With the performance hit on the Atlas 5 rocket’s most recent flight last month now isolated to a faulty valve, preparations to resume the manifest are underway as United Launch Alliance workers stack the next booster for blastoff this summer. The Mixture Ratio Control Valve (MRCV) governing the blend…
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Environmental testing underway for JPSS 1 launching in January
The next American polar-orbiting weather satellite that will feed long-range forecasts and track environmental trends has slipped into space-like testing ahead of launch. The Joint Polar Satellite System spacecraft No. 1 will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Jan. 20 at 1:47 a.m.…
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Door now open to launch educational hitchhikers on Atlas 5 rockets for free
CAPE CANAVERAL — United Launch Alliance has begun accepting applications from colleges and universities across the U.S. to compete for free cubesat launch slots aboard upcoming Atlas 5 rockets. The educational opportunity will use excess performance aboard rockets launching to space to carry the tiny student-made craft made of science and technology experiments. “Universities pioneered…
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Delta 4-Heavy passes countdown rehearsal for upcoming NRO launch
CAPE CANAVERAL — Successfully put through its countdown paces in a critical pre-flight test Thursday, America’s largest rocket currently in service moved closer to a June launch for the U.S. intelligence community. Liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy on the classified NROL-37 mission is targeted for June 4. Known as a Wet Dress…