Source: NASA NASA’s NuSTAR mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean on June 13, no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT). The observatory, which will hunt for black holes and other exotic objects using specialized X-ray eyes, will be launched from a Pegasus XL rocket carried by an Orbital Science Corporation L-1011 [...]
Post Tagged with: “Rocket”
Final Soyuz-U Launched from Plesetsk
On May 17, Russia launched its final Soyuz-U rocket from the Plesetsk Space Center. The 40 year old launch vehicle family will be replaced by the Soyuz-2 and Angara-A3 carrier rockets. The Soyuz-U is a medium class carrier rocket that was developed from the R-7 ballistic missile in the mid-1950′s. The first Soyuz-U launched in 1973, also from the Plesetsk Space [...]
North Korea’s Launch Preparations Well Advanced
North Korea is planning a rocket launch on 14-16 April, to commemorate the birthday of the nation’s founder. This is North Korea’s third attempt to launch a rocket since 1998. Satellite images of Tongchang-dong Space Launch Center show that North Korea is making all the preparations consistent with a mid April launch. The images show that North Korea “has undertaken [...]
Main Body of North Korea’s Rocket Arrives at Launch Site
North Korea has transported the main body of the Unha-3 rocket to Tongchang-ri, the location from which it will be launched on April 12-16 to celebrate Kim Il Sung’s birthday. “South Korea and US military authorities are aware that North Korea has moved the main body of a long range missile [to Tongchang-ri] and is preparing for launch,” said a US Defense [...]
Infographic: North Korea’s Unha-3 Rocket
Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration North Korea has announced plans to launch a new long-range rocket, which it says will carry the country’s first Earth-orbiting satellite. The Unha-3 rocket launch is slated for mid-April to mark the 100th birthday of North Korea’s founder Kim il-Sung, who founded the communist state in 1948, but the [...]
Simplicity Saves NASA a Fortune
Using inexpensive off the shelf electronics, NASA scientists devised a system to mitigate thrust oscillation from the Ares I rocket that would have cost millions of dollars to eliminate via damping. NASA has a submitted a patent for the solution, which is likely to appear in future launch systems. Advanced models of the Ares I rocket demonstrated vibration in excess [...]
Progress M-14M Rocket Photographed From the Ground
UPDATE: Some clear color views of the Soyuz-U rocket 3rd stage, which orbited the Progress M-14M. The rocket will have reentered and decayed in meantime. Analyses of the obtained imagery suggest a relatively steady behave of this rocket compared to much more turbulent tumbling observed with other Soyuz launches. This was fairly well confirmed by the reasonable steady visual appearance [...]
USAF Awards Reusable Launch Vehicle Contracts
On December 5th, the United States Air Force (USAF) announced it had selected two space firms to develop a flight demonstration vehicle named Pathfinder as part of its 250 million USD Reusable Booster System (RBS) Flight and Ground Experiments program. Lockheed-Martin and Andrews Space will compete for individual tasks throughout the 5-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, launched from the Wright-Patterson Air [...]
ESA, DLR Test New Propellant Management Technology
On November 27th, a Texus rocket was launched from Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, on a suborbital flight to test a new propellant management device. The 13-minute flight of the DLR-procured rocket allowed for 6 minutes of microgravity testing, reaching an apogee of 263 kilometers. Guy Pilchen, Future Launchers Preparatory Manager at ESA, said of the event, “The launch of [...]
Copenhagen Suborbitals Passes Rocket Test
On November 26, Copenhagen Suborbitals conducted a test of their two-stage rocket SMARAGD. The test was a success, with a 3 second burn on the first stage and 20 second burn on the second stage engine. The engines are designed to ignite simultaneously with allowance for a 3 second delay. During the test, the engines ignited within 0.11 seconds of [...]
