Tag: Kennedy Space Center

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches 23 Starlink Satellites from KSC

Spaceflight Now reports, “SpaceX launched its latest batch of Starlink satellites, increasing the company’s mega-constellation in low Earth orbit. The mission came as SpaceX works towards the launch of a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station over the weekend. Liftoff of the Starlink 10-6 mission from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center happened at 1:01 a.m. EDT.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 

 

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral on Falcon 9 rocket
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)

The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse is Happening Today

SPACE reports, “Today (April 8) a total solar eclipse will sweep across North America from Mexico, through 15 U.S. States and up through Canada. For viewers inside the path of totality, the moon will completely cover the sun, darkening the sky and revealing our star’s hidden outer atmosphere.”
Full Story (SPACE)

 

 

 

 

 

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Watch Total Solar Eclipse 2024 Live
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Eutelsat 36D Telecommunications Satellite

Via Satellite reports, “SpaceX launched the Airbus-built Eutelsat 36D telecommunications satellite for Eutelsat Group over the weekend. It was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 30. Eutelsat selected Airbus in March 2021 to build Eutelsat 36D. This is the 22nd Airbus-built communications satellite for Eutelsat.”
Full Story (Via Satellite)

 

 

 

 

Videos

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)

Falcon Heavy Launch Scheduled for Late Wednesday

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports that SpaceX is “rolling out its powerful Falcon Heavy for a late-night launch Wednesday that will feature double sonic booms of its returning boosters that might shake up Central Florida.” The rocket “is one of the most powerful available for Space Coast launches, essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together that produce 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.” The payload for this mission “is a telecom satellite for Hughes Network Systems called the EchoStar Jupiter 3 aiming for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A during a 99-minute launch window that opens at 11:04 p.m.” A backup opportunity “falls during the same window Thursday.” Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron “predicts an 85% chance for good weather Wednesday, and 60% if the backup window is needed on Thursday.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

NASA Showcases Crew Modules for Artemis II, III, and IV

Gizmodo reports that the crew modules for NASA’s Artemis II, III, and IV missions “are currently stationed next to one another at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the three spacecraft undergoing different stages of production for their upcoming launch dates.” NASA recently “shared a group photo of its Orion crew capsules inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, revealing the spacecraft trio coming together ahead of humanity’s return to the Moon.” The Artemis II spacecraft is “designed to carry astronauts on a journey to the Moon and back in late 2024.” NASA technicians recently “installed the heat shield on the Artemis II Orion capsule, which is designed to protect the crew and the spacecraft during its reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)

Boeing’s Starliner on Track to Launch in April

SPACE reported that The Boeing Company and NASA officials have announced that the Starliner’s first crewed flight will launch in April. The next major milestone “for Starliner’s progress will be loading propellant into the vehicle’s service module.” Successful propellant loading will begin a 60-day launch window in order to prevent valve corrosion on the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
Full Story (SPACE)

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Rocket Readies for Halloween Launch

CNET News reports, “The Falcon Heavy mission dubbed USSF 44 is the next launch on deck for pad 39-A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, currently set for Oct. 31 at 9:44 a.m. ET (6:44 a.m. PT). The Space Force describes it as a classified mission.” The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket ever launched, and will remain so until the Artemis I lifts off as scheduled in November of this year.
Full Story (CNET News)

Boeing Starliner Launches on Test Flight to ISS

Space.com reports Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft successfully launched Thursday at 6:54 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station “kicking off the crucial Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2).”  Fifteen minutes after launch, Starliner separated from the ULA Atlas V’s upper stage, and “16 minutes later, the capsule aced its 45-second-long orbital insertion burn.”  OFT-2, an uncrewed mission to the ISS, is designed to demonstrate Starliner’s readiness to carry astronauts on behalf of NASA.
Full Story (Space.com)
 
 
 

 

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Boeing Starliner OFT-2 Launch

NASA: Boeing Starliner Ready for Uncrewed Launch Thursday

Reuters reports, “NASA astronauts and officials on Wednesday said” The Boeing Company’s “Starliner space capsule is ready for its uncrewed launch this week to the International Space Station.” The launch is scheduled for “6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT) on Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” The mission is to “attempt to dock to the space station on Friday and spend four to five days attached to the orbital outpost before returning to Earth.”
Full Story (Reuters)

Boeing, NASA Ready for Second Starliner Test Flight

Space News reports that The Boeing Company and NASA “say they’re confident they have resolved a valve issue that delayed a test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle last year and are ready to try again later this month.” Boeing on Thursday “moved the Starliner spacecraft from a processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center…to a United Launch Alliance vehicle processing facility at Space Launch Complex 40. The Starliner will be installed on the Atlas 5 rocket there for final preparations for the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission, scheduled for launch May 19.”
Full Story (Space News)

SpaceX Launches New Crew to ISS

Space.com reports SpaceX successfully launched the NASA SpaceX Crew-4 mission early Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida. NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti are on their way to the ISS, following launch at 3:52 a.m. EDT. The astronauts are expected to arrive at “the space station for a docking at 8:15 p.m. EDT (0015 GMT on April 28).”
Full Story (Space.com)
 
 
 

 

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Kennedy Space Center Evolves to Serve New Generation of Space Explorers

Speaker: Robert Cabana, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

By Duane Hyland, AIAA Communications (2008-2017)

Long considered the nerve center of the U.S. space program, the site of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, has witnessed every manned mission the U.S. has started. With the end of the space-shuttle era in 2011, Kennedy faced an uncertain future with many worrying that the best days of the center were behind it.

Not so, according to Robert Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center. Cabana told an audience at “The Transformation of the Kennedy Space Center,” a lecture during the 2015 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando, Florida, that Kennedy is “rapidly evolving to meet the needs of a new generation of space explorers,” who will need a safe place to leave from and return to as they go about their explorations.

Cabana explained that the center is preparing to host the next generation of launchers and vehicles for the U.S. space program, chief among them the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft. He said the Kennedy also is expanding to meet the needs of commercial space customers. In order to host these new generations of rockets, NASA and its private space company partners are building new buildings, constructing new launch pad complexes and modifying older complexes.

Cabana said the projects include a revamp of the Vehicle Assembly Building; transformation of the Orbiter Processing Facility into a Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility; a rebuild of Firing Room 1 — the room that launched the Apollo missions; and several other changes. Cabana also said that two new launch pad sites were under development: “one north of 39B and one between 39A and 41.”

Another change, according to Cabana, include the Space Exploration Technology Corp.’s redevelopment of iconic launch pad 39A — which launched nearly every Apollo mission — into a facility to launch its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Additionally, Boeing Co. has taken over part of the Orbiter Processing Facility for its X-37B unmanned spacecraft project. Kennedy also has teamed with the state of Florida and NASA’s Space Life Sciences Laboratory to create Exploration Park, a research and development facility on the center’s property that will serve as a hub for private enterprise and private-public partnerships.

Among the more challenging of the refurbishment projects, Cabana said, has been the removal of the more than 3 miles of 50-year-old copper wiring and other equipment from the firing control rooms tunnel between the rooms and launch complexes.

Cabana explained that the end of the space-shuttle era brought about a 43 percent reduction in the center’s workforce. However, despite the losses, and the end of the iconic program, Cabana said, “Kennedy Space Center is set to become a thriving hub of government space programs, private space programs and private-public partnerships” that will give explorers a safe place to return.

Video

All 2015 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum Videos

X-37B Lands at Kennedy Space Center after Spending 908 Days in Orbit

Aviation Week reported behind a paywall that the US Space Force “landed the X-37B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 12, completing a 908-day mission that set a new record for endurance while performing several classified and unclassified missions.” Space News reported that this was the “sixth mission of the crewless reusable plane, built by Boeing and jointly operated by the U.S. Space Force and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.” On this mission, the “X-37B carried several U.S. military and NASA science experiments, including a Naval Research Laboratory project to capture sunlight and convert it into direct current electrical energy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s FalconSat-8, which remains in orbit. One of NASA’s experiments was the Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space. Scientists will use the data to understand the effects of the space environment on different types of materials. Another experiment was to investigate the effects of long-duration space exposure on seeds.”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)

Fram2 Astronauts Launch on Polar Orbit Mission

Spaceflight Now reports, “A historic mission took flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday night. Against the backdrop of an off-shore band of thunderstorms, four first-time astronauts soared off the pad at Launch Complex 39A onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and headed into a polar orbit. Malta resident Chun Wang funded the orbital polar expedition and flew alongside Norwegian cinematographer, Jannicke Mikkelsen; German arctic robotics researcher, Rabea Rogge; and Australian polar guide, Eric Philips.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)



Video

Fram2 Astronauts Launch on Polar Orbit Mission (Launch occurs at 2:00:17)
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)