Shuttle Endeavour – the youngest orbiter in the fleet – was preparing for her final hours prior to launch, after the Mission Management Team (MMT) met to approve the tanking of ET-122. However, several issues popped up in the count, most notably with an OMS tank issue, which was then resolved, prior to a heater issue on Auxiliary Power [...]
Read more... »
Endeavour is all set for her final S0007 launch countdown events, opening with the retraction of the Rotating Service Structure (RSS), delayed to 11:45pm local time on Thursday. Only a handful of minor Interim Problem Reports (IPRs) have been charged against Endeavour, all of which have been resolved heading into what may be her final day [...]
Read more... »
With Endeavour zipping through S0007 (launch countdown) ops, teams at Launch Complex 39A have completed PRSD load for Endeavour’s three electricity-producing Fuel Cells. Meanwhile, with no outstanding issues for the baby orbiter’s launch Friday at ~15:47.52 EDT on the STS-134/ULF6 mission to the International Space Station, final launch reviews have been completed – reviews that [...]
Read more... »
Russia’s Progress M-10M spacecraft, also going by its American designation of 42P, launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:05 PM GMT. Following a two day chase-down of the International Space Station (ISS), automated docking to the Nadir port of Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” will occur on Friday (29th April) at 2:29 [...]
Read more... »
Endeavour has entered the three day countdown for what is likely to be her final ever launch. No issues are in work ahead of the next key status review – the L-2 Mission Management Team (MMT) meeting – as engineers dive into the complex ballet of S0007 operations, hopefully ending with the successful launch of [...]
Read more... »
Uncertainty over the configuration of the Space Launch System (SLS) Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) may soon come to a close – at least for the interim – with a plan solidifying for using a 70mt Shuttle Derived (SD) HLV to perform a handful of flights, while another “open competition” for the main “Phase 2″ [...]
Read more... »
From the beginning of the Space Shuttle Program, the promise of a permanent, space-based work platform – dubbed Space Station Freedom – was a fixture within the Program. And while Space Station Freedom didn’t quite materialize as expected, what came from the fruits of those laborious development sessions provided a solid foundation for unprecedented international [...]
Read more... »
Arianespace have launched with Yahsat 1A and Intelsat New Dawn telecommunications satellites via the Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle on Friday, the same vehicle which suffered a rare pad abort after main engine ignition on its first attempt at the end of March. After the vehicle was rolled back at the the European Spaceport in [...]
Read more... »
The Space Shuttle Program was well underway by January 1986 – with preparations marching toward the launch of the 25th Space Shuttle mission, a mission to place a school teacher in Low Earth Orbit. And while the STS-51L/Challenger mission ended in disaster, from its devastating aftermath came the hope of a new beginning in the [...]
Read more... »
Atlantis is pressing towards a May 12 rollover to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) as her engineers work on resolving a few minor Interim Problem Reports (IPRs) on the vehicle. Atlantis’ STS-135 processing flow is marking what is likely to be the final milestones to be worked by the Shuttle teams, with the last ever [...]
Read more... »
Managers at the Agency Flight Readiness Review (FRR) have – as expected – approved April 29 as the launch date for STS-134. The meeting also discussed the health of Endeavour’s External Tank (ET-122), following a bout of severe storm weather at Pad 39A at the end of March – resulting in high wind loads on [...]
Read more... »
NASA has awarded four Space Act Agreements in the second round of the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2), a commercial effort aimed to foster domestic crew transportation by the middle of the decade. The winners – ranging from lifting body to capsule spacecrafts – were Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and [...]
Read more... »
Following a relatively relaxed week at Pad 39A, Endeavour is preparing to enter Ordnance installation tasks on Monday and Tuesday, as the youngest orbiter in the fleet heads into her final week prior to the launch countdown. With the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) also set to take place on Tuesday, managers are making their final [...]
Read more... »
With just over two months to go before the farewell flight of NASA’s long-running Space Shuttle Program, mission managers for the STS-135/ULF7 flight of middle-child orbiter Atlantis are expressing rather significant concerns over the mission’s stretched-thin timeline. In fact, as it currently stands, the already maxed-out terminal flight of the Shuttle program is simply too [...]
Read more... »
The United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket has performed its twenty-fifth launch, delivering into orbit the classified NROL-34 payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office. The launch took place from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 04:24 UTC Friday (21:24 local time Thursday).
Read more... »
With a large amount of contingency in her pad flow, Endeavour’s processing pace has slowed down this week. The flow is expected to ramp up on Friday as preparations begin for S0007 (Launch Countdown) operations. While the feared government shutdown was averted, memos pre-empting the possibility revealed some insight into the latest launch window planning [...]
Read more... »
April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin launches into orbit aboard Vostok 1 to become the first human being to travel into space. April 12, 1981: Space Shuttle Columbia proudly soars into the early-morning sky over Central Florida to a) become the first-ever reusable spacecraft, b) the first spacecraft to launch like a rocket and return like [...]
Read more... »
One month after the completion of her STS-133 mission, Discovery is nearing completion of Down Mission Processing (DMP) activities inside OPF-2 at the Kennedy Space Center. With DMP nearly complete, technicians will soon begin the initial stages of Transition & Retirement processing on the Shuttle Program’s fleet leader. With this step, technicians will follow a [...]
Read more... »
The first Chinese launch in 2011 took place at 20:47UTC on Saturday (April 9), as their Chang Zheng-3A (Long March 3A) launch vehicle orbited the third BeiDou-2 a navigation satellite, following lift-off from the Xi Chang Satellite Launch Center, in Sichuan Province. China is planning around 20 missions in 2011.
Read more... »
Following a meeting between NASA and Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) managers on Friday, a decision was made to call off the planned Soyuz documentary flyabout of the International Space Station (ISS) and Endeavour during the STS-134/ULF-6 mission, due to concerns with crew impacts in the event that the Soyuz should fail to re-dock with the [...]
Read more... »© 2005-2011 NASASpaceFlight.com | powered by
WordPress
| Advertising | Entries (RSS) 
.
69 queries. 0.511 seconds.