All posts tagged "Rockets"

WASHINGTON — After a nearly two year hiatus, Blue Origin flew adventurers to space on Sunday, including a former Air Force pilot who was denied the chance to be the United States' first Black astronaut decades ago.

It was the first crewed launch for the enterprise owned and founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos since a rocket mishap in 2022 left rival Virgin Galactic as the sole operator in the fledgling suborbital tourism market.

Six people including the sculptor Ed Dwight, who was on track to become NASA's first ever astronaut of color in the 1960s before being controversially spurned, launched around 9:36 a.m. local time (1436 GMT) from the Launch Site One base in west Texas, a live feed showed....

SpaceX is set to send up another Starlink launch from Kennedy Space Center on Sunday night while prepping for a unique cargo launch from Cape Canaveral now targeting Tuesday. A Falcon 9 rocket is set to lift off at 6:15 p.m. Eastern from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A on a southerly trajectory carrying another 23 satellites for the growing internet constellation. Backup launch options run through 9:55 p.m. and on Monday beginning at 5:39 p.m. The first-stage booster is making its 18th flight including Inspiration4 and Ax-1, and will make a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. ......

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX carved its way through cloudy skies on the Space Coast, sending up a four-man crew on a private mission to the International Space Station. The quartet rode on the Crew Dragon Freedom, making its third trip to space atop a Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 4:49 p.m. Eastern time on the Ax-3 mission for Houston-based Axiom Space. The first-stage booster made its fifth flight, coming back for a landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1, sending a sonic boom across parts of Central Florida. “The four of us that are lu......

SpaceX is set to send up another Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday night. A Falcon 9 carrying 23 of the internet Satellites is targeting a 7:27 p.m. liftoff from Canaveral’s Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, but has multiple launch opportunities through 11:25 p.m. The launch, which was delayed from a Saturday attempt, has a southerly trajectory so will be more visible down the Florida coast. Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts 85% chance for good conditions, which declines to 20% in the event of a 24-hour delay. The first-stage booster is flying its 12th......

SpaceX held off a Sunday night attempt to send up its fifth Falcon Heavy launch of the year, delayed it for a day and now aims for Monday night. Flying for only the ninth time ever, the Falcon Heavy is slated to lift off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A during a 10-minute window that opens at 8:14 p.m. A backup during the same window is available Tuesday night. Weather concerns were an issue for Sunday night and SpaceX said it would take the extra time to complete additional prelaunch checkouts. The payload for the mission dubbed USSF-52 is the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on its seve......

ORLANDO, Fla. — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to attend the launch of the Artemis I moon rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Monday, according to a release from the White House. Harris and second gentlemen Doug Emhoff will be on hand with Harris delivering remarks ahead of the planned liftoff during a two-hour window that opens at 8:33 a.m. Harris is the chair of the National Space Council that helps inform President Joe Biden on space policy. She will also tour the space center to view some of the hardware on hand for the Artemis II and III missions that expect to return humans to orbit ......