Tag: NASA

Godspeed, John Glenn

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, died today. Just a few minutes ago I received the call from my mom letting me know this. At the time, I had just fired up a game, wanting to relax a little before work. I noticed she called as I loaded the game up, and […]

GOES-R Is Successfully Launched On An Atlas V Rocket

After some delays due to vehicle issues (which I believe were reported as a “false positive” in an error detection system) and a minor issue with the Eastern Missile Range (Remember, rocket launches are subject to USAF missile range safety protocol), The NOAA/NASA satellite was successfully released from the upper stage of it’s Atlas V […]

Soyuz MS-03 Successfully Launches to the ISS

Today has really been a space heavy day for me, hasn’t it? Today marks the successful launch of Soyuz MS-03, sending another 3 person crew, Oleg Novitskiy, Peggy Whitson, and Thomas Pesquet, to the International Space Station. I don’t have much commentary: not that Soyuz launches are boring (far from it) but there really isn’t […]

Atlas V GOES-R Mission Profile

An Atlas V is set to launch on November 19th in a 541 configuration (5 meter payload fairing, 1 Common Core Booster, and 4 Solid Rocket Boosters) carrying the GOES-R payload for NASA and the NOAA. This satellite will be placed into a geostationary orbit around the earth to monitor the general weather conditions of the […]

Soyuz MS-02 Launch Replays

Soyuz

What rocket launch article on Xadara would be complete without a companion article on the launch replays? In this case, as mentioned in the last article we have a beautiful day launch of the Soyuz booster and the MS-02 spacecraft. This booster didn’t launch from “Gagarin’s Start,” the normal pad that most Russian manned flights […]

Antares Flies Again

For the first time in nearly 2 years, an Antares rocket launched from the launch facilities on Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying a Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station. While a pretty straightforward launch of a somewhat plain seeming booster, this launch was a critical moment for Orbital ATK, creators of Cygnus and Antares, […]

The Launch of Apollo 7

48 Years ago today, Apollo 7 launched on the first manned flight of the Apollo Program, and the first manned flight on a Saturn 1B rocket. This mission, a planned 2 week stay in orbit testing the Apollo Command / Service Module system with a crew, was the mission originally planned for Apollo 1. 18 […]

The Sputnik Moment

The story of Sputnik 1 is far more than just a simple satellite going into orbit. When Sputnik 1 launched in October of 1957, the United States was caught by absolute surprise. How could the Soviets beat the Americans into putting up an artificial Satellite? What did this mean they could do next? What would […]