VEGA ROCKET LAUNCHES IXV SPACEPLANE – MISSION COMPLETE - The European Space Agency is flying a reentry demonstration mission Wednesday with its Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV). Boosted by Europe’s lightweight Vega rocket, the IXV flew a suborbital mission culminating in landing and recovery in the Pacific Ocean after around 102 minutes of flight. Liftoff is occurred at 13:40 UTC from Kourou, French Guiana. The Intermediate Experimental Vehicle, or IXV, is a fully-automated technology demonstration spacecraft designed to build on earlier research into atmospheric reentry and serve as a stepping stone to a proposed reusable experimental vehicle. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Feb 11)
DARPA TO BEGIN TESTING SATELLITE-LAUNCHING FIGHTER JET THIS YEAR - The United States military's ambitious plan to launch satellites from the belly of a fighter jet should get its first in-air test later this year. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to begin the flight-test phase of its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program, or ALASA, with a demonstration run in late 2015. If all goes according to plan, a series of 12 orbital flights would then commence in early 2016 and wrap up by the middle of the year, DARPA officials said. "The plan right now is, we have 12 [orbital] launches. The first three are fundamentally engineering checkout payloads," Bradford Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, said Feb. 5 during a presentation at the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C. More (Source: Space.com - Feb 11)
SPACEX CRS-5 DRAGON RETURNS HOME VIA PACIFIC SPLASHDOWN - SpaceX’s CRS-5 Dragon spacecraft departed the International Space Station (ISS) ahead of a return to Earth on Tuesday. The EOM (End Of Mission) events climaxed with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at around 7:44 pm Eastern, concluding another successful mission for the commercial resupply spacecraft. Launched atop of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle on January 10, Dragon has enjoyed yet another successful mission at the orbital outpost – her sixth ISS stay in total. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Feb 11)
SPACEX SCRUBS FALCON 9'S DSCOVR LAUNCH (AGAIN) DUE TO WINDS - SpaceX postponed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with the Deep Space Climate Observatory once more on Tuesday, due to unacceptable upper-level winds. The rocket was geared up to send the observatory, also known as DSCOVR, on its trek to a vantage point a million miles from Earth — and then make a second try to land the rocket's first stage on an oceangoing platform. But with 13 minutes left on the countdown clock, the upper-level winds were judged to be too high for the rocket to handle. More (Source: NBC News - Feb 10)
SPACEX DRAGON CAPSULE LEAVES SPACE STATION FOR OCEAN SPLASHDOWN - SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule is headed back to Earth after spending one month attached to the International Space Station, marking the start of a big day for the private spaceflight company that also includes a satellite launch and bold rocket landing attempt. The uncrewed Dragon supply ship — carrying hardware and experiments back from the station — cast off from the space station at about 2:10 p.m. EST (1910 GMT) today, Feb. 10. Dragon will splash down in the Pacific Ocean at 7:44 p.m. EST (0044 Feb. 11 GMT), where a recovery ship is standing by to retrieve the capsule. If all goes according to plan, the splashdown should occur just hours after SpaceX is due to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) space weather satellite into orbit. SpaceX also hopes to try to land the rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after delivering the satellite to space. More (Source: Space.com - Feb 10)
EUROPEAN SPACE CARGO SHIP'S FIERY DEMISE STARS IN NEW VIDEO - A stunning video shows the destruction of a robotic cargo ship re-entering Earth's atmosphere in November after delivering 7 tons of supplies to the International Space Station. The sequence of pictures shows the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) named for Albert Einstein burning up over an unpopulated area of the Pacific Ocean. The amazing ATV re-entry video, which ESA unveiled last week, shows the colorful breaking apart of the vehicle as it entered Earth's atmosphere on Nov. 2, 2013. The ship carried about 1.7 tons of waste from the station. More (Source: Space.com - Feb 10)
SPACEX LAUNCH WITH DEEP-SPACE WEATHER BUOY RESET FOR TUESDAY - ace Exploration Technologies will try again Tuesday to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with a U.S. satellite intended to watch for threatening solar storms, NASA said on Monday. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida had been planned for Sunday, but was called off two minutes before launch because of a problem with an Air Force radar system needed to track the rocket during flight. The launch was then postponed to Monday, but a poor weather forecast prompted SpaceX, as the California company is known, to reschedule for Tuesday. More (Source: Reuters - Feb 10)
SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET LAUNCH SCRUBBED, RESCHEDULED FOR MONDAY - Tonight's SpaceX Falcon 9 launch has been scrubbed. The next launch attempt has been set for 6:07 p.m. Monday. Issues with a first-stage transmitter and a range radar caused crews to scrub the launch attempt. More (Source: News 13 Orlando - Feb 8)
SPACEX TO TRY ROCKET LANDING AGAIN WITH DSCOVR SATELLITE LAUNCH - When SpaceX launches a long-delayed satellite to study space weather on Sunday, the private spaceflight company also hopes to do the amazing: return a rocket to Earth and land it on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage of its 14-story Falcon 9 rocket after launching the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR for short) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. Liftoff is set for Sunday, Feb. 8, at 6:10 p.m. EST (2310 GMT) and will be webcast live by NASA TV. It will be SpaceX's second try in two months to land a rocket on an ocean drone ship as part of company founder Elon Musk's dream of making reusable rocket technology a reality. On Jan. 10, SpaceX attempted a Falcon 9 rocket landing but the booster ran out of hydraulic fluid for its four grid steering fins on the way down. The rocket stage slammed into SpaceX's drone ship and exploded. More (Source: Space.com - Feb 8)
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