Looks like the engineering teams at SpaceX did things right – the 1st stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for the SES-10 launch, which was used last April for the CRS-8 Mission, not only flew successfully, apparently they re-landed the stage on a drone ship in the ocean. Again. Yeah, the stage successfully launched and […]
Category: Space
Finally, A Falcon 9 First Stage Re-flight To Happen On The SES-10 Mission
One of the goals in the rocketry ethos of SpaceX is reusability – This past year they have seemingly mastered the art of landing a booster back on Earth and, if need be, onto ocean barges (quite an incredible thing when you think about how rough ocean waters are). Later this evening, they plan on […]
The Saturn V Rocket And The F-1 Engine “The Conquest Of Space”
EchoStar 23 Successfully Launched On A Falcon 9 Booster
This morning was the successful launch of of the EchoStar 23 communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a Falcon 9 booster. This is the second launch of a Falcon 9 from LC-39, and the 3rd successful launch since the September 2016 explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket on LC-40. It looks […]
Sentinel-2B Successfully Launches On A Vega Rocket
NROL-79 Successfully Launched By An Atlas V
Seems like every few months the National Reconnaissance Office is sending another reconnaissance satellite into orbit – yesterday the payload was NROL-79, launched into a polar orbit from Vandeberg Air Force Base on an Atlas V booster in the standard 401 configuration. It was a somewhat early morning launch of a naval reconnaissance satellite. The […]
The Launch Of Progress MS-05 And The Final Soyuz-U Booster
February 22nd, 2017 marked the end of an era: after 43 years, the final Soyuz-U vehicle launched from Pad 1/5, or “Gagarins Start” at Baikonour Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, sending the Progress 66 (Internally known as Progress MS-05) supply vehicle to the International Space Station. The Soyuz-U Booster variant is the most flown rocket configuration in history, […]
50 Years Ago: The Launch Day Of Apollo 1
February 21st, 1967 was the original planned launch day for the Apollo 1 mission. Of course, we all know the fire on January 27th put a grinding halt on the Apollo program until the problems that caused the death of the crew could be isolated and solved An American wouldn’t fly in space again until […]
The Full Mission Of Friendship 7
If you ever wanted to see and hear a complete space flight, YouTube user LunarModule5 has you covered: One of his hobbies is to compile together actual audio and video of missions, combined with simulator produced visuals and some minor editing into complete, comprehensive overviews of entire flights. Mercury-Atlas 6 is one such mission. The […]
First American In Orbit: John Glenn “Friendship 7” 1962 NASA Film
What launch anniversary would be complete without the requisite NASA film from the era about the mission. In this case, this hour long video on Mercury-Atlas 6, John Glenn’s historic first Earth orbit by an American in the Friendship 7 spacecraft. 55 Years Ago: The Flight Of Friendship 7 As I said, this is an […]
55 Years Ago: The Flight Of Friendship 7
On February 20th, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in his Mercury capsule, Friendship 7. It was a short, 3 orbit mission, but regardless, an American had orbited the Earth and returned safely, which was a key goal of Project Mercury from the get-go. Of course, Glenn wasn’t the first […]
SpaceX CRS-10 Launch Webcasts
CRS-10 Launch Scrubbed Due To Thrust Vector Control Issues – What That Means
Todays launch of the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon spacecraft for the CRS-10 mission was scrubbed until tomorrow, February 19th. The reason? An issue with Thrust Vector Control (VTC for short) on the 2nd stage. Reports are early, so I don’t have details, but this seems to have been the key issue for the scrub, […]
SpaceX CRS-10 – The First Launch From LC-39 In 5 Years
Saturday, February 18th, 2017, will mark the first launch in 5 years from Kennedy Space Center LC-39. Pad 39A last saw usage for the final launch of the Space Shuttle Program, STS-135, in 2011, and since then has been only slightly modified from its shuttle configuration to accommodate the future SpaceX Commercial Crew Missions to […]
India Launches 104 Satellites In One Record-Breaking Launch
Yesterday, Feburary 15th 2017 (In India, still the 14th here in the States), The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) successfully launched 104 satellites using one booster as part of their PSLV-C37 mission. The mission was launched into a polar orbit, with the primary payload being the CartoSat-2D Earth observation satellite. 103 micro-satellites, 3 of which […]