Ars Technica reports, “NASA and Boeing officials pushed back Friday on headlines that the commercial Starliner crew capsule is stranded at the International Space Station but said they need more time to analyze data before formally clearing the spacecraft for undocking and reentry. Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams will spend at least a few more weeks on the space station as engineers on the ground conduct thruster tests to better understand issues with the Starliner propulsion system in orbit.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)
Tag: July 1
SpaceX to Launch Euclid Dark Energy Probe
SPACE reported that Euclid, a dark matter and dark energy hunter, is “scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on July 1 at 11:11 a.m. EDT (1511 GMT).” Euclid aims to “map the extent and influence of the dark universe to a sharper degree than ever before, with numerous implications: how the universe grew in its early days, how galaxies come together, and why the expansion of the universe is accelerating.” Euclid Project Scientist René Laureijs said, “Dark energy and dark matter reveal themselves by the fairly subtle changes they make to the appearance of objects in the visible universe; otherwise we don’t know about them.”
Full Story (SPACE)
ULA’s Atlas 5 Launches Two Space Force Satellites to Test Early Warning Technology
CBS News reported that “after waiting out cloudy weather, the U.S. Space Force launched two satellites atop an Atlas 5 rocket Friday to test ballistic and hypersonic missile early warning and tracking technology and to deploy a maneuverable spacecraft carrying an unknown number of classified payloads.” United Launch Alliance’s 196-foot-tall rocket lifted off at 7:15 p.m. EDT from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, “knifing through low clouds and quickly disappearing from view as it streaked away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean. Eleven minutes later, the Aerojet Rocketdyne engine powering the rocket’s second stage completed the first of three planned firings designed to put the two satellites in a circular orbit 22,300 miles above the equator.” According to CBS News, the “trip was expected to take about six hours, ending early Saturday with the satellites’ deployment from the Centaur second stage.”
Full Story (CBS News)
Video
Atlas 5 rocket launch with U.S. Space Force experimental satellites, July 1, 2022
(Spaceflight Now via YouTube)