The Houston Chronicle reports that The Boeing Company has announced that it plans to launch its CST-100 Starliner test flight – originally scheduled for August 3 of last year – on May 19. “Next month, Boeing will launch its Starliner spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. They will lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.”
Full Story (Houston Chronicle)
Tag: launch
Blue Origin Makes First New Shepard Launch of 2022
Space News reports that Blue Origin “launched its New Shepard suborbital vehicle on its first flight of the year March 31, carrying six people on a brief trip to space and back.” The rocket “lifted off from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:59 a.m. Eastern.” The crew of Blue Origin’s NS-20 mission were paying customers Marty Allen, Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen and George Nield, and Blue Origin New Shepard Chief Architect Gary Lai.
Full Story (Space News)
More Info (AIAA News)
SpaceX to Reuse Falcon 9 Booster for Record 12th Time
Spaceflight Now reports that SpaceX “raised a veteran Falcon 9 booster vertical on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral late Thursday, ready for a record-setting 12th mission Friday night with 53 more Starlink internet satellites.” The launch “will mark the 12th flight of a Falcon 9 booster that debuted in March 2019 with the unpiloted test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which paved the way for subsequent SpaceX launches with astronauts. This booster, designated B1051, has launched from all three of SpaceX’s active pads in Florida and California.”
Full Story (Reuters)
SpaceX Launches New Round of Starlink Satellites from Florida
Florida Today reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket “launched from Florida Thursday morning, sending the company’s newest batch of Starlink internet satellites to low-Earth orbit and completing the company’s first launch of March.” SpaceX’s ninth Falcon 9 launch “in as many weeks blasted off at 9:25 a.m. EST from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center with 47 Starlink internet satellites packed into the nosecone of the reused, 230-foot rocket.” Coupled with ULA’s launch “of its Atlas V rocket earlier in the week, Thursday morning’s launch marks the tenth successful mission from Florida’s Space Coast this year.”
Full Story (Florida Today)
GOES-T Satellite Launched Tuesday
The Washington Post reports on Tuesday, the United States launched “its latest and greatest weather satellite, which will provide constant monitoring over the Western Hemisphere and help track fires, hurricanes, lightning, smoke plumes, coastal fog, landslides, atmospheric rivers, dust storms and more.” Some instruments will also “stare at the sun, providing data on incoming space weather that could disrupt technology on Earth.” The NOAA GOES-T launched “at 4:38 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.” The satellite is expected “to be fully operational by early 2023 and will oversee the U.S. West, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and Pacific Ocean.” Pam Sullivan, system program director for the GOES-R Series Program, said in a virtual news conference, “NOAA’s geostationary satellites provide the only continuous coverage of weather and hazardous environmental conditions in the Western Hemisphere, protecting the lives and properties of the 1 billion people who live and work there.”
Full Story (Washington Post)
NASA: Artemis 1 Will Not Launch Until May
SPACE reports an April launch is “no longer possible for Artemis 1, which will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the moon using a huge Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, agency officials said today (Feb. 24). And May could be difficult to hit as well.” Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA headquarters in Washington, said Thursday during a virtual news conference, “We continue to evaluate the May window, but we’re also recognizing that there’s a lot of work in front of us.”
Full Story (SPACE)
SpaceX Launches NRO Spy Satellite
Space News reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 “launched a U.S. government spy satellite into orbit Feb. 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.” The NROL-87 payload, launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East at 3:28 p.m. Eastern, “was the National Reconnaissance Office’s first space mission of the year and the first orbital launch of 2022 from the Western Range.” The AP reports that the Falcon’s first stage “flew back to the seaside base northwest of Los Angeles and landed so that it can be reused in a future NRO mission.”
Full Story (Space News);
More Info (Associated Press)
SpaceX Scrubs Thursday Falcon 9 Launch
Spaceflight Now reports that SpaceX “scrubbed the planned launch of an Italian radar remote sensing satellite Thursday due to dismal weather at Cape Canaveral.” The Falcon 9 rocket is to launch at 6:11 p.m. EST Friday. The rocket is to carry a COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation (CSG) radar surveillance satellite “into a polar orbit for the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defense.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
Weather Downgraded for Thursday Launch at Cape Canaveral
Florida Today reports that US Space Force calculations “show a downgraded forecast for SpaceX’s next launch from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, a mission that will include sonic booms as the Falcon 9 booster returns to the Space Coast for landing.” The weather could “begin to clear before the liftoff window at 6:11 p.m. EST Thursday.” The latest forecast “dropped the ‘percent go’ probability at Launch Complex 40 to 60%, a slight downgrade from the previous version.” Landing conditions for the return of the Falcon 9 rocket booster to Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1 were downgraded from “low risk” to “moderate risk.”
Full Story (Florida Today)
SpaceX Launches 100 Smallsats into Orbit
Space News reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 “placed more than 100 smallsats into orbit Jan. 13 as the company accelerates the pace of its dedicated rideshare missions.” Thursday’s launch was dubbed Transporter-3. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:25 a.m. Eastern.” The launch carried 105 satellites, and the largest single customer was Earth observation company Planet, “which flew 44 SuperDove spacecraft.”
Full Story (Space News)