SpaceX is set to launch its 7th Commercial Resupply mission to the International Space Station on June 28th, but based on a notice posted by NASA last Friday, it may be adding at least for more missions to the count through an extension which would see the original contract run through 2018. Fellow supplier Orbital-ATK, […]
SpaceX has finally confirmed that it will indeed be attempting to land the Falcon 9 first stage on its autonomous drone ship following Friday’s CRS-5 launch to the International Space Station. The complete description is posted on their website’s update page here. America’s Russian engine addiction continues unabated. Orbital Sciences has selected the RD-181 derivative […]
$16.5 Million Dollars Ago. OSC Pegasus Launches IRIS. Image Credit : NASA In case there was any doubt there is still a long, long way to go in reducing launch prices across the spectrum, consider this NASA press release from November 20th. CONTRACT RELEASE C14-047 NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Ionospheric Connection Explorer NASA […]
Will Cygnus be on the Manifest? Image Credit SpaceX One week after the loss of an Antares launch vehicle carrying a Cygnus cargo vessel bound for the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corporation held a conference call with investors to discuss what it has learned about the accident thus far, and its plans for going […]
Tuesday’s loss of the Orbital Sciences Antares booster carrying a Cygnus cargo vessel to the International Space Station, a failure of space hardware, is also bringing more attention to matters of space policy, where the news is both good and bad. To begin with, the explosion of the Antares rocket only six seconds into flight, […]
Orbital Sciences has suffered a major accident in the launch of the Orb-3 mission to the International Space Station. Six seconds into a launch which was delayed one day due to a boat straying into the safety zone, the Antares booster carrying a Cygnus resupply vessel appeared to lose thrust and come crashing back into […]
Waiting on a new day / Image credit Orbital Sciences It was a beautiful evening for a rocket launch. Unfortunately, it was also an equally beautiful evening to do a little boating. Ordinarily not a problem, but in this case the unidentified vessel in question was downrange of the Orbital Sciences Antares booster which was […]
Cygnus Approach Orion Image Credit: OSC One of the most common arguments put forward in support of NASA’s current program of exploration using the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft is that alternative modular missions launched by smaller boosters are inherently too complicated. The ISS, which required dozens of Shuttle and Russian launches to complete, […]
Image Credit: NASA TV Following an uneventful approach to ISS after its launch from Wallops on Sunday, the Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo vessel SS Janice E. Voss is for now, a component of the Station itself. The vessel was grappled at 5:36 am CDT by Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson who was operating out of […]
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the ship as named after Janet Voss. After two days of delays due to inclement weather during attempts to roll out to the pad, an Orbital Sciences Antares booster lifted off at 12:52 pm EDT today, carrying a Cygnus cargo ship named in honor of NASA astronaut […]
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