Tag: Readies

Sierra Space Prepares Dream Chaser for Pre-launch Trek to KSC

Spaceflight Now reports, “Sierra Space is getting one step closer to finally seeing its Dream Chaser spaceplane reach the launch pad. The spacecraft completed its environmental testing at NASA’s Armstrong Test Facility last week … Sierra Space is now preparing to load up Dream Chaser and Shooting Star for shipment down to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Once it arrives, teams will finish adding the thermal protection tiles and perform additional checkouts, like acoustic testing.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

Crew Readies for Virgin Galactic’s Fourth Commercial Spaceflight

SPACE reports that Virgin Galactic “is preparing for its fourth commercial spaceflight mission.” Galactic 04 will “carry a three-person crew accompanied by the company’s head astronaut instructor, as well as the two pilots at the helm of Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity.” Their flight “to the edge space is scheduled to take place on Friday, (Oct. 6).” The mission “will take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico.” VSS Unity and its crew “will be brought to altitude by the spaceplane’s double-cockpit carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, which will release VSS Unity at around 50,000 feet (15,000 meters).” After release, a “firing of VSS Unity’s rocket motor will put it on a suborbital trajectory, bringing the space plane and crew to the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness and a great view of their home planet.”
Full Story (SPACE)

US Spaceplane to Return to Orbit on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy

FlightGlobal reports that the secretive “spaceplane” operated by the US Space Force (USSF) “will return to orbit for its seventh long-endurance mission, this time aboard the world’s largest commercial rocket.” The USSF “announced the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) will launch on 7 December from Cape Canaveral, Florida for the ultra-long endurance spacecraft’s seventh mission.” The announcement “comes almost exactly one year after the X-37B landed from its sixth flight mission in November 2022.” That flight, which “launched in May 2020, lasted 908 days and carried a solar energy experiment for the US Navy and a satellite for the US Air Force Academy.” The goal “of the latest orbital flight, dubbed X-37B Mission 7 or OTV-7, is to experiment with new space technologies aimed at furthering the ‘safe, stable, and secure operations in space for all users,’ the USSF says.”
Full Story (FlightGlobal)

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)

ESA Readies for ‘Assisted Reentry’ of Aeolus

Space News reports that the European Space Agency “is in the final stages of performing an ‘assisted reentry’ of an Earth science spacecraft, an effort that will attempt to bring the satellite down over the ocean in a little more than a week.” A series of maneuvers “will lower the perigee of the Aeolus spacecraft to enable a reentry, projected over the Atlantic Ocean, on July 28.” The maneuvers “are intended to minimize any chance that debris from the spacecraft that survives reentry would land in populated areas.”
Full Story (Space News)

SpaceX Awaits FAA Approval for Starship Orbital Test Flight

The Miami Herald reports that after “running through a successful test fire this month, SpaceX is set to fly its massive Starship and Super Heavy rocket, and is just waiting on the Federal Aviation Administration for the green light, according to one company official.” The company said the static fire test in which 31 of the rocket’s 33 engines performed as expected was the first and only necessary step towards an orbital test flight.
Full Story (Miami Herald)

Next SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Could Happen as Soon as Next Week

The Orlando Sentinel reports that for sheer rocket entertainment, “space fans can get excited whenever SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy launches, and that next opportunity could come next week.” Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex “posted to its website an event to view the previously announced USSF-67 mission for the Space Force using the rocket that produces 5.1 million pounds of thrust on liftoff, launching from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A.” The attraction offers “one of the closest locations to view the launch through an extra-cost package admission, and the listing targets no earlier than Thursday, Jan. 12, although neither SpaceX or the Space Force have yet to announce a target date or time beyond the intention to fly in January.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel – Subscription Publication)

SpaceX Plans Starship Launch as Early as Monday

The Orlando Sentinel reports that SpaceX doesn’t plan a launch pad run-through for its Starship and Super Heavy rocket, which has a target date of April 17 for its suborbital test launch from Boca Chica, Texas, although the company has yet to receive FAA approval. Under the flight plan, the booster will launch east over the Gulf of Mexico, separate, and make a water, while “Starship will then progress on a suborbital path around more than 2/3 of the planet before also attempting a water landing near Hawaii.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

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)