It’s the 4th of July tomorrow and, being quite honest, I had nothing quite planned to write today or tomorrow. However, to keep up with the spirit of Xadara, my love of space, and in a classic “Happy Birthday America” bit of patriotism, I’ve decided to just flood you with some random rocket launches in […]
Back on the 7th of June (the 8th of June in Russia) the legendary Proton-M rocket made its first launch of 2017. This powerful booster hasn’t been launched in just shy of a year thanks to some manufacturing issues which would have put a launch into jeopardy; it looks like those issues have been solved. […]
On June 5th, 2017, The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched a payload on their most powerful rocket booster ever, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle MK3. As the name suggessts, this is a booster designed to launch satellites into Geosynchronous orbits (orbit’s that stay in position over a particular spot of the planet) or, […]
Getting back to the grind, we might as well start with this video, uploaded today , which is a digital conversion of a 1966 film about the process of filming and photographing rocket launches at Vandernberg Air Force Base. Launches from VAFB were more common than launches from the Eastern Test Range and Cape Canaveral […]
Yesterday evening SpaceX launched Inmarsat-5 F4, the heaviest payload yet flown on a Falcon 9. Inmarsat-5 is yet another communications satellite, this one intended to provide increased network connectivity over Europe (to put it extremely simply). The vehicle was a Falcon 9 full thrust, and due to the record weight of the payload (for Falcon […]
Yesterday evening, from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched 2 large communications satellites into orbit, one for Brazil and another for South Korea. Ariane 5 is the European Space Agencies heavy booster, using 2 solid rocket motors for the bulk of liftoff thrust, and a core engine burning Hydrogen […]
As I mentioned yesterday, here we have the launch replays of the Soyuz MS-04 Mission. The mission successfully docked to the ISS 6 hours after launch on April 20th, delivering its 2 person crew to the space station. Not much commentary for this one – It’s just some good views of a very nice Soyuz […]
It’s getting to the point where there are so many rocket launches day in, day out, that I can’t keep up. In this case, we have a rocket that I’ve never covered before, the ESA’s “Vega” booster, and a pretty nice launch from the Guyana Space Centre. Vega is a somewhat unique rocked in that […]
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 […]
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 […]
Another day, another launch it seems. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster (431 configuration) launched the Echostar 19 communications satellite today, marking the 68th Atlas V launch. Normally I would go on waxing poetically about the payload, the booster, and what have you, but this time, there isn’t anything to say that hasn’t been […]
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 […]
This video, released a few weeks ago, is an amazing way to experience Junes NROL-37 launch, via use of full 360 degree cameras placed around the launch complex. It’s exactly as it sounds, no more, no less: multiple views of the launch, with you being able to look around much like you were there. 360 […]
On October 27th, 1961, the first Saturn booster, SA-1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on a 15 minute sub-orbital flight to test the booster. This first flight beget a series of 10 Saturn 1 test flights, 9 Saturn 1B flights, and 13 Saturn V flights. Saturn 1 was a […]
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 […]