Tag: Orbital Sciences

Five Years Later: Part II

Five Years Later: Part II

Dawn of New Era : KSC Clock Adds Up the Minutes of the First SpaceX Launch to ISS If Project Constellation was the clear victim of President Obama’s Kennedy Space Center address, the immediate beneficiary was without a doubt the International Space Station program. Slated for de-orbit as soon as 2016 in some Constellation planning […]

Russia Rising: Angara A5 Lifts Off On Maiden Flight

Russia Rising: Angara A5 Lifts Off On Maiden Flight

Russia successfully launches the Angara booster on its first orbital flight. From the Russian news agency TASS: MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. A new Russian heavy rocket was successfully test-launched from the Plesetsk space center on Tuesday as planned at 08:57am Moscow time. The head unit has separated from the third stage of the Angara rocket, […]

Posted in: Russian Space
Orbital Sciences Awards Cygnus Launch to ULA

Orbital Sciences Awards Cygnus Launch to ULA

And the Award Goes To… Atlas V!  Image Credit : United Launch Alliance When Orbital Sciences Chairman and CEO David W. Thompson told investors during a conference call on November 5th that his company would be awarding at least one, and possibly two Cygnus launches to another supplier in the wake of the Antares launch […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
SpaceX CRS-5 Flight to ISS Set for December 16

SpaceX CRS-5 Flight to ISS Set for December 16

The next SpaceX launch to the International Space Station has been shifted from a provisional No Earlier Than (NET) date of December 9th one week until December 16th, with backup dates on the 19th and 20th. Liftoff is scheduled at 2:31 pm EST. NASA is still in the process of shuffling its payload assignments in […]

Building on SpaceX and Tesla Experience, Elon Musk Looks at Global Broadband Satellites

Building on SpaceX and Tesla Experience, Elon Musk Looks at Global Broadband Satellites

Is Elon Musk about to launch a revolution in satellite construction similar to the one he began at SpaceX which has is already altering the economics of how they are launched? The Wall Street Journal apparently thinks so, based on a story by Rolfe Winkler and Andy Pasztor. According to the report, Musk is considering […]

Posted in: Space Settlement, SpaceX
Antares Accident Update: SpaceX Falcon 9, ULA Atlas V to the Rescue?

Antares Accident Update: SpaceX Falcon 9, ULA Atlas V to the Rescue?

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 […]

Disaster in the Desert: Tragedy Strikes Virgin Galactic

Disaster in the Desert: Tragedy Strikes Virgin Galactic

Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground In the second major disaster to strike commercial space in the same week, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo broke up in the air above the Mojave desert shortly after igniting its new plastic compound based hybrid motor in what would have been its first powered test flight. […]

“A Mishap Has Occurred” OSC Antares Rocket Fails 6 Six Seconds Into Flight

“A Mishap Has Occurred” OSC Antares Rocket Fails 6 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 […]

Antares Liftoff Scrubbed Due to Marine Traffic

Antares Liftoff Scrubbed Due to Marine Traffic

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 […]

SpaceX Dragon Returns, OSC Cygnus Set to Launch

SpaceX Dragon Returns, OSC Cygnus Set to Launch

CRS-4 Dragon Returns / Image Credit : SpaceX Completing its five week mission, the SpaceX CRS-4 Dragon capsule departed from the International Space Space Station at 8:57 AM CDT Saturday morning. A little under six hours later, it was floating in the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles west of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Following the Dragon’s […]

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