China launches surge of space missions

A Long March 4C rocket takes off Nov. 22 from the Jiuquan launch base with the Gaofen 3-02 remote sensing satellite Credit: CASC China has launched four space missions from three different spaceports in the span of a week, hauling cargo into orbit for military communications, radar surveillance, and optical imaging. The surge of launches began Nov. 20 with the blastoff of a Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan launch base in Shanxi province, a...

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NASA calls off spacewalk due to possible risk of space debris

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Two spacesuits inside the Quest airlock on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA A planned spacewalk outside the International Space Station by astronauts Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron was called off early Tuesday after NASA received an overnight warning about possibly threatening space debris. The station’s seven-member crew was not told to take shelter in their Earth-return...

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Weather forecast favorable for SpaceX launch this week

A Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky over Cape Canaveral during a launch with Starlink satellites in March 2021. Credit: SpaceX Forecasters predict a 90% chance of good weather Wednesday night at Cape Canaveral for launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a fresh group of Starlink internet satellites. SpaceX is readying a Falcon 9 launcher for liftoff at 6:20 p.m. EST (2320 GMT) Wednesday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The...

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Russian military launches new missile warning satellite

 Russia’s military successfully deployed a spacecraft in orbit Nov. 25 to join a constellation of satellites circling the globe to monitor for missile launches. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket and Fregat upper stage lifted the military payload into orbit from the snow-covered Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Launch occurred at 0109 GMT on Nov. 25 (8:09 p.m. EST on Nov. 24), according to a statement issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Soyuz rocket’s four first stage boosters fired two minutes, followed by jettison of the rocket’s core...

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NASA gives green light to fuel James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope inside a clean room at the Guiana Space Center. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now NASA engineers have cleared teams at the Guiana Space Center in South America to begin loading 63 gallons of fuel and oxidizer into the James Webb Space Telescope, after extra testing showed the observatory suffered no damage during a processing incident in the clean room earlier this month. During a “consent to fuel” review held...

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Astronaut Alan Shepard’s daughter and Michael Strahan named to spaceflight

File photo of a previous Blue Origin New Shepard launch. Credit: Blue Origin The third piloted flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft will launch December 9 with a crew of six, including a network morning anchor and the eldest daughter of Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the company announced Nov. 23. Michael Strahan of ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Laura Shepard Churchley will fly as guests of...

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Russian node module docks with International Space Station

Russia’s Prichal node module moments before docking at the International Space Station. Credit: Roscosmos Russia’s Prichal docking module linked up with the International Space Station Friday, adding the final planned piece of the Russian segment of the outpost to provide a new connection for future crew and cargo ships. The spherical, ball-shaped docking node launched Wednesday at 8:06:35 a.m. EST (1306:35 GMT) on top of a Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket...

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NASA spacecraft blasts off on experimental mission to divert asteroid

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with NASA’s DART asteroid deflection mission. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls A small NASA space probe blasted off from California early Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a first-of-its-kind mission to change the orbit of an asteroid, pioneering a technique that may one day be used to divert an asteroid off of a collision course with Earth. The $330 million Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART mission,...

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Comment on Record-Tying Falcon 9 to Launch DART Asteroid Impact Mission Tomorrow Night by SpaceX Launches DART Mission on Ten-Month Impact Trek to Binary Asteroid – AmericaSpace

[…] As outlined in AmericaSpace’s preview story, the 1,480-pound (670-kilogram) DART is a ten-month mission to hit Dimorphos at a velocity of about 4.1 miles per second (6.5 kilometers per second) in October 2022. It is hoped that the impact will disrupt Dimorphos sufficiently as to slow its near-circular path around Didymos by as much as ten minutes, reducing its orbital length from 11.9 hours to about 11.83 hours. […] from Comments for AmericaSpace https://ift.tt/3cPWPXn via World Space In...

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Comment on Inspiration4 Launches, Delivers First All-Civilian Crew to Orbit by SpaceX Launches DART Mission on Ten-Month Impact Trek to Binary Asteroid – AmericaSpace

[…] Additional launches included a pair of geostationary communications satellites for SiriusXM and the Turkish Government and last September’s historic all-civilian Inspiration4 crewed mission to low-Earth orbit. […] from Comments for AmericaSpace https://ift.tt/3CIXTH7 via World Space In...

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Live coverage: Russia set for launch of new space station module

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Soyuz rocket with Russia’s Prichal module for the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. NASA TV Roscosmos webcast NASA TV’s live video webcast begins at 0530 GMT (12:30 a.m. EST), and will be available on this page. from Spaceflight Now https://ift.tt/3HPY7jx via World Space In...

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Comment on Crew-3 Launches, Heads for Thursday Space Station Docking by SpaceX Launches DART Mission on Ten-Month Impact Trek to Binary Asteroid – AmericaSpace

[…] This year’s roster to date has seen 15 dedicated Starlink missions, a pair of multi-payload Transporter “rideshares” in January and June and two Cargo Dragon and two Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station (ISS). […] from Comments for AmericaSpace https://ift.tt/3r9wLPt via World Space In...

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Comment on SpaceX Launches Year’s 20th Falcon 9, Delivers Transporter-2 Rideshare to Orbit by SpaceX Launches DART Mission on Ten-Month Impact Trek to Binary Asteroid – AmericaSpace

[…] 15 dedicated Starlink missions, a pair of multi-payload Transporter “rideshares” in January and June and two Cargo Dragon and two Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station […] from Comments for AmericaSpace https://ift.tt/3DQSizX via World Space In...

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SpaceX Launches DART Mission on Ten-Month Impact Trek to Binary Asteroid

@SpaceX has launched its record-tying 26th Falcon 9 mission of 2021, carrying the DART impact mission, bound for the binary asteroid system Didymos/Dimorphos. from AmericaSpace https://ift.tt/3oYzwAq via World Space In...

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Photos: Falcon 9 rocket stands on Vandenberg launch pad with NASA asteroid probe

These photos show SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket standing on Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, hours before liftoff with NASA’s DART mission, an experiment to test how a spacecraft might deflect a hazardous asteroid away from Earth. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher is awaiting blastoff at 10:21:02 p.m. EST Tuesday (1:21:02 a.m. EST; 0621:02 GMT Wednesday) from Vandenberg, a military launch facility on California’s Central...

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Falcon 9 launch timeline with DART

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base, heading southeast over the Pacific Ocean with NASA’s DART asteroid deflection experiment. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket is poised for takeoff from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 10:21:02 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 (1:21:02 a.m. EST; 0621:02 GMT on Nov. 24). The payload for the mission is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test,...

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Live coverage: NASA, SpaceX set to launch asteroid deflection experiment overnight

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket with the French military’s CERES electronic intelligence-gathering satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. NASA TV’s live video webcast begins at 0530 GMT (12:30 a.m. EST), and will be available on this page. from Spaceflight Now https://ift.tt/32ummnl via World Space In...

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Webb telescope launch delayed to investigate clean room incident

The James Webb Space Telescope inside its clean room in French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Piron NASA said Monday the launch of the $9.7 billion James Webb Space Telescope will be delayed at least four days until no earlier than Dec. 22 out of “sheer caution” to ensure the observatory suffered no damage from vibrations during a processing incident at its launch site in French Guiana. Ground teams are retesting parts of the observatory...

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Comment on Record-Tying Falcon 9 to Launch DART Asteroid Impact Mission Tomorrow Night by Viktor

The problem of asteroid hazard is very serious and will always hang over humanity like the sword of Damocles. It is quite natural when everyone wants to hope for the success of space missions aimed at preventing this danger. But when such a mission is conceived with violating the law of physics (the impossibility of momentum transferring to the target as a whole during an perfectly inelastic collision) and astronomical data (the crumbly internal structure of the near-Earth asteroids in the presence of large vacuum voids, which are able to completely...

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SpaceX ready for first launch with NASA interplanetary mission

NASA’s DART spacecraft was encapsulated inside the payload fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 16. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman A small NASA spacecraft set to launch on a collision course with an asteroid has been encapsulated inside the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 rocket for blastoff from California this week, a mission that will mark SpaceX’s first launch with a solar system science probe. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection...

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