Lifting off on time at 5:41 pm ET from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40, the first SpaceX Falcon 9 booster carrying a commercial communications satellite has successfully placed its payload, the SES-8 comsat into geostationary transfer orbit. Tonight’s launch was the culmination of a long and at times trying campaign which saw two previous attempts over […]
It began with a historic berthing in LEO, and ended with the successful return to flight of a troubled booster steeped in anachronism. And right in the middle, the future emerged on a pillar of fire piercing a blue Pacific sky. To begin at the ending, the oft troubled Proton booster returned to flight Sunday […]
UPDATE: According to multiple sources, the CASSIOPE satellite and all secondary payloads have deployed successfully. By any standards, SpaceX has had an exceptional day. The inaugural flight of the new SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.1 began with an on-time liftoff at 9:00 AM PDT this morning. With no holds, or apparent issues of any sort, the […]
It is after all, just a test launch. But what a test launch it is. Whenever the Falcon 9 v1.1 finally lifts off from Vandenberg, Ca. it will carry much more than a 700 lb. satellite, (as well as a couple of cubesats) which got a bargain basement price for accepting an elevated level of […]
According to a tweet from Elon Musk Thursday evening, after a fully successful second static fire of the Falcon 9 v1.1, SpaceX is ready to begin launch preparations for a window at Vandenberg which opens “in 10 days.” If that holds, the launch could occur as early as Sunday, September 29th. Space.com reported earlier this week […]
The maiden launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 v.1, to be conducted out of Vandenberg AFB in California, has been pushed back from September 10th to the 14th, and if a recent tweet from company founder Elon Musk is any indication, further delays are possible, as the company attempts to cover every contingency for one […]
A busy, and unusually significant September launch schedule got underway Saturday at 4:05 p.m. EDT with the liftoff of a Land Launch Zenit-3SLB booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Carrying the 9,500 lb. AMOS-4 communications satellite, Israel’s largest Comsat so far, to a GTO, the successful launch marked a return to flight for […]
SpaceX has completed a full length mission test burn of the Falcon 9 V1.1 first stage at its rocket development facility in McGregor, Tx. This most recent test, which according to the Waco Trib took place at approximately 7:41 p.m. Sunday evening, was confirmed by twitter post from Elon Musk, who congratulated his team for overcoming a number of difficulties. […]
Wacotrib.com reports via its Joe Science blog, the following notification from SpaceX received Thursday evening. “SpaceX completed first-stage development testing on June 19 with a test fire. This test achieved all verifications needed following earlier stage testing, and with this test we have achieved the equivalent of nearly two full mission duty cycles on the integrated stage. […]
SpaceX and Israel’s Space Communication Ltd., Spacecom, announced late yesterday that it has won a launch order for Spacecom’s AMOS- 6 communications satellite. The launch of the 5 ton satellite to geosynchronous orbit is slated to be conducted in 2015 aboard a Falcon 9 out of Cape Canaveral. It will replace the AMOS- 2 satellite, which is scheduled to be retired in 2016. Unlike […]
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