Josefin Enstrom (Credit: Spaceport Sweden)
KIRUNA, Sweden (Spaceport Sweden PR) — We are very happy and proud to present Josefin Enström as our new crew member.
Josefin, who has a bachelor’s degree in professional experience production, from Luleå University of Technology in Piteå, has been awarded a 10-month trainee position as a part of the government led Sustainable Tourism Destination Development project further backed by Sparbanken Nord and Spaceport Sweden.
The second Antares rocket being prepared for launch. (Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation)
WASHINGTON, DC (NASA PR) — Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., will postpone by at least 24 hours the launch of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft on a demonstration mission to the International Space Station from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.
The new launch window is targeted for Wednesday, Sept. 18 between 10:50 to 11:05 a.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at Wallops. Rendezvous with the space station remains scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 22. NASA Television will air pre- and post-launch news conferences and provide live launch and rendezvous coverage of the mission.
Will do another static fire of rocket to make sure all is good & AF needs to test ICBMs, so probable launch Sept 29/30. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 15, 2013
Multiple reports indicate that the Falcon 9 launch scheduled for Vandenberg on Sunday morning has been definitely postponed. It looks as if SpaceX will attempt another static hot fire next Wednesday, with a launch to follow at a later date if all goes well. A static fire on Thursday revealed anomalies, although SpaceX has been tight lipped about the nature of the problem. Stories circulated that the company was planning […]
FREMONT, Calif. (SFF PR, September 13, 2013) — The Space Frontier Foundation and the NewSpace Business Plan competition, in conjunction with their sponsors, are thrilled to announce the 2013 Business Plan Competition Finalists. Finalists are listed below in alphabetical order. This year, the NewSpace Business Plan Competition will be held on October 24th in California’s famed investor hot-spot, Silicon Valley and in partnership with Stanford University. For more information on […]
Moffett Federal Airfield lease area.
The Silicon Valley Space Center (SVSC) will roll out its plan for use of Moffett Federal Airfield (MFA) on Sunday, Sept. 15 from 2 to 4 p.m. PST, at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, Calif.
The event will allow organizations and individuals to learn about how to lease office and lab space under a proposal SVSC will submit to operate and maintain MFA and to rehabilitate and reuse Hangar One.
Antares/Cygnus Mission Update Via Orbital Sciences Corporation Following a launch review meeting held earlier this morning, Orbital’s Antares team has decided to postpone the launch of the COTS Demonstration mission from Wallops Island, VA by at least 24 hours. The combination of yesterday’s poor weather that delayed roll-out of the rocket to the launch pad and a technical issue that was identified during a combined systems test held last night […]
TOKYO (JAXA PR) — Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the first Epsilon Launch Vehicle (Epsilon-1) with the Spectroscopic Planet Observatory for Recognition of Interaction of Atmosphere (SPRINT-A) onboard at 2:00 p.m. JST on September 14, 2013 from the Uchinoura Space Center.
The launch vehicle flew smoothly, and, at about 61 minutes and 39 seconds after liftoff, the separation of the SPRINT-A was confirmed.
JAXA has confirmed that the Spectroscopic Planet Observatory for Recognition of Interaction of Atmosphere (SPRINT-A) has deployed its solar array paddles (SAPs) normally at 15:49 p.m. today through data received at the Uchinoura Ground Station. The satellite is currently in good health.
Ukraine’s Cyclone rocket
ACS PRs — The Brazilian Government has made a planned contribution of R$33,333,333 [$14,671,361] to the ACS capital. Transfer of these funds was authorized by the Presidential Decree dated 23.08.2013 and published on 26.08.2013 in the Diário Oficial da União, the official newspaper.
The Decree also mentioned the equivalent contribution of the Ukrainian Party realized by means of intergovernmental transfer.
The Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has approved the State Scientific and Technical Space Program of Ukraine for the period of 2013-2017 and accepted for consideration the Draft Law on Financial Support of the Cyclone-4 Project Implementation.
It’s been a long, hard road to space for Canada’s CASSIOPE satellite, which now sits atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California waiting for engineers to resolve anomalies discovered in the rocket’s first stage engines.
The 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) spacecraft was originally booked in 2005 on SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 1 rocket, with an expected launch in 2008. Delays followed, and then CASSIOPE was shifted to the much larger Falcon 9 launch vehicle after SpaceX canceled the Falcon 1 program. The spacecraft spent years in a storage facility awaiting its turn.
CASSIOPE is now set for launch on a “development flight” of the new Falcon 9 version 1.1, which features about a half dozen significant changes over its predecessor. Any time a launch provider makes even one significant alteration in a booster, it increase the chances of something going wrong. To make a multiple ones and test them all at once involves major risks.
