ROCKET LAUNCH MAY BE VISIBLE HERE - Sometime after 8 o'clock Thursday night, the Air Force hopes to put five small satellites into orbit with a rare launch from Virginia's Eastern Shore. If skies clear, the rocket's climb to orbit could be visible throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The U.S. Air Force TacSat-3 satellite is set for liftoff sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. It will ride atop a four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket.    More
(Source: Baltimore Sun - May 7)

VIRGINIA ROCKET LAUNCH POSTPONED UNTIL THURSDAY… - The scheduled launch of a Minotaur 1 rocket from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast was postponed last night due to weather. The launch has been rescheduled for Thursday evening, again, weather permitting. Given clear skies, the launch is expected to be widely seen all along the east coast. The Minotaur 1 is a four stage 69-foot tall rocket and is schduled to loft the Air Force Research Laboratory’s TacSat-3 satellite and two additional payloads into earth orbit.    More
(Source: Fayobserver.com - May 6)

DELTA II LOFTS MISSILE DEFENSE SATELLITE - A NASA-supervised mission carrying a satellite with a prototype sensor technology for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was put into a low-Earth polar orbit Tuesday one hour after liftoff by a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The $400 million Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (SSTS-ATRR) mission, originally called the Block 2010 space Risk Reduction, was launched at 1:24 p.m. PDT and achieved orbit at 2:22 p.m. from a two-stage Delta II 7920-10L.    More
(Source: Aviation Week - May 6)

OMID SATELLITE ENTERED THE ATMOSPHERE - The satellite Omid, or “hope” in Farsi, has probably entered the atmosphere around South America, Reza Taqipour, the head of the Iranian Aerospace Organization, said on Friday. The satellite has accomplished its mission and it has entered the earth’s atmosphere as it lost its altitude, Taqipour told Mehr News Agency.    More
(Source: Tehran TImes - May 3)

ROCKET TO LAUNCH 'SPY IN THE SKY' SATELLITE IN VA. - A satellite scheduled for launch from Virginia's Eastern Shore is designed to detect hidden enemy weapons and deliver their locations to U.S. combat troops, scientists testing the technology say. The information would be especially suited to battle conditions in the rugged, mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, where the Obama administration is sending more troops.    More
(Source: Daily Press - May 2)

SPACE SHUTTLE IS "GO" FOR MAY 11 LAUNCH - NASA just cleared shuttle Atlantis and seven astronauts for a May 11 launch on a fifth and final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Senior managers took a poll at a the conclusion of an executive-level Flight Readiness Review and firmly established the May 11 launch date. Liftoff time that day will be 2:01 p.m.    More
(Source: USA Today - May 1)

SHUTTLE WILL UNDERGO MINOR REPAIR - A dropped tool during payload loading operations last week will require a repair to shuttle Atlantis after all, NASA says. The patch to a radiator panel inside the orbiter's left payload bay door is not expected to impact a targeted May 11 launch to the Hubble Space Telescope, said KSC spokesman Allard Beutel. The repair, which must carefully avoid potential contamination of Hubble's highly sensitive payload, is precautionary to ensure that launch vibrations don't worsen the crack, he said.    More
(Source: USA Today - Apr 30)

FIRST PHARMA SATELLITE GOING TO SPACE - NASA is about to launch the first pharmacology dedicated research satellite into a low Earth orbit on May 5 aboard the Minotaur 1 rocket. As part of NASA's small satellite program, the PharmaSat nanosatellite weighs only ten pounds and is the size of a loaf of bread. Aboard is a colony of yeast cells continuously monitored by a bunch of sensors while undergoing pharmacological antifungal treatment to study how it is affected by working in space.    More
(Source: Medgadget.com - Apr 30)

SHUTTLE ATLANTIS MIGHT BEGIN HUBBLE MISSION ONE DAY EARLIER - The U.S. space agency might try to launch space shuttle Atlantis on May 11, a day earlier than scheduled, administrators announced Thursday in Houston. Moving the launch forward would give NASA three possible launch days, said the deputy manager of the shuttle program, Leroy Cain. A decision will be made next week, he said, adding, "we are doing everything we can to make the May 11 launch."    More
(Source: CNN - Apr 23)

Previous Next