Tag: rocket

Firefly Ready to Test Launch USSF On-Demand Service

Aviation Week reports that sometime in the next six months, Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems and startup Firefly Aerospace “will receive a call from the U.S. Space Force to integrate and launch a satellite in 24 hr.” Until then, the companies “will stand at the ready for the military’s Victus Nox mission.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

NRO Contracts Firefly, Xtenti for Responsive Space Mission

Aviation Week reports Firefly Aerospace is “parlaying technology” developed for its “Alpha launch vehicle and Blue Ghost lunar lander with expertise acquired through its purchase of Spaceflight into a new business line focused on in-space services, with the National Reconnaissance Office.” Space News reports that on Tuesday, NRO “announced a contract with Firefly Aerospace and Xtenti for a responsive space mission.” The NRO mission is “scheduled to launch on a Firefly Alpha launch vehicle in 2024,” and will “demonstrate multiple on-orbit deployments with Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle and Xtenti’s Fantm-Ride small satellite dispenser.” Elytra will “deploy commercial rideshare payloads with Fantm-Ride, before performing an on-orbit maneuver.” After the maneuver, Elytra “will remain in orbit on standby, prepared to deploy U.S. government payloads on-demand.”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)

Space Force to Increase Rocket Launch Purchases

CNBC reported the US Space Force “plans to buy even more rocket launches from companies in the coming years than previously expected, granting more companies a chance at securing billions in potential contracts.” Amid increasing need to improve “military capabilities in space,” the US plans to “almost triple the number of launches in Phase 3 that it bought in Phase 2 in 2020.”
Full Story (CNBC)

Vulcan Rolled Out to Launchpad for Final Series of Tests Ahead of its Debut Launch

Aviation Week (5/11) reports that a “United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan-Centaur rocket was rolled out to its launchpad on May 11 for a final series of tests ahead of its debut launch, targeted for this summer.” Space News reports ULA said on Thursday that the “Vulcan is in position atop SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to undergo a full launch day rehearsal tomorrow and flight readiness firing test of its main engines planned for next week.” ULA CEO Tory Bruno tweeted on Wednesday that the “Vulcan was returning to tanking tests although the investigation of a Centaur upper-stage testing anomaly that occurred on March 29 has not yet been completed.” Bruno said that “ULA plans to livestream the flight-readiness test firing of the BE-4 main engines. The test fire is expected to last about six seconds, he said. ‘A short burn, but a very long time to be on the pad.’”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)

ULA Expects Vulcan Launch in the Summer, at Earliest

Gizmodo reports United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno tweeted that company’s Vulcan rocket’s earliest estimated launch date would be “June/July.” ULA previously planned a May 4 inaugural flight, but in late March a spark triggered a fireball during testing of a Vulcan upper stage at the test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The Vulcan’s first launch “is set to deliver Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which, on behalf of NASA, will attempt to deliver 11 payloads to the surface of the Moon.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)

ULA Announces May Launch for First Vulcan Centaur Rocket

Space News reports that the “first launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket is now scheduled for no earlier than May 4, a date the company says is based on remaining tests of the rocket and its main engines as well as launch windows for its primary payload.” In a call with reporters Thursday, ULA CEO Tory Bruno “announced the date for the long-awaited inaugural flight of the rocket as the company gears up for a series of tests of the rocket at Space Launch Complex 41. The launch will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation and a payload for space memorial company Celestis.” Bruno said, “We are now targeting the fourth of May so we plan our manifest around that and be ready to fly that payload when it comes in.” According to Space News, “ULA will have a window of about four days to conduct the launch.”
Full Story (Space News)

SpaceX Launches 40 More Internet Satellites

Spaceflight Now reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket “lifted off from Cape Canaveral Monday night with 40 more internet satellites for OneWeb, nudging the network closer to full operational capability.” The Falcon 9 booster “returned to Cape Canaveral for landing eight minutes later.” SpaceX delayed “the launch of a different Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Monday night due to bad weather.” That mission was “supposed to launch just 35 minutes before the OneWeb mission from Cape Canaveral, but has now been rescheduled for liftoff Tuesday night.” The SpaceX launch team “working in a control center just outside the gate of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station began loading super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 vehicle at T-minus 35 minutes.” Helium pressurant also “flowed into the rocket in the last half-hour of the countdown.” In the final “seven minutes before liftoff, the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines were thermally conditioned for flight through a procedure known as ‘chilldown.’” The Falcon 9’s “guidance and range safety systems were also configured for launch.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 Video

SpaceX launches the OneWeb Launch 16 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, Monday, January 9 at 11:50 p.m. ET.
(SpaceX; YouTube)