BOEING'S STARLINER CAPSULE READY FOR THIRD ATTEMPT TO REACH SPACE STATION - An Atlas 5 rocket carrying Boeing's Starliner crew capsule was mounted on its seaside launch stand Wednesday, setting the stage for blastoff Thursday on the company's third attempt to complete an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station. Software glitches spoiled the Starliner's debut test flight in December 2019, preventing an autonomous rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station, and corroded valves derailed a planned reflight last August.   More
(Source: CBS News - May 19)

WATCH SPACEX LAUNCH 53 NEW STARLINK SATELLITES EARLY WEDNESDAY - SpaceX plans to launch 53 more Starlink internet satellites and land the returning rocket on a ship at sea early Wednesday morning (May 18), and you can watch all the action live. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday at 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT). The rocket's first stage will land on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean about nine minutes after liftoff, if all goes according to plan.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 18)

STARLINER NEARS LAUNCH, CREW WORKS SPACE BOTANY AND HUMAN RESEARCH - The International Space Station is gearing up for the targeted arrival of Boeing’s Starliner crew ship on the company’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission. Meanwhile, the Expedition 67 crew is continuing its ongoing life science activities while maintaining orbital lab systems. Weather forecasters are predicting a 70% chance for favorable weather when Boeing’s OFT-2 mission is scheduled to launch at 6:54 p.m. EDT on Thursday.    More
(Source: NASA - May 18)

ASTRONAUT SNAPS SUPER FLOWER BLOOD MOON ECLIPSE PHOTOS FROM SPACE STATION - Astronauts at the International Space Station enjoyed stunning views of the total lunar eclipse on the night of May 15. European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti shared several snapshots on Twitter today (May 16), showing different stages of the Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse framed by space station equipment and with cloud-covered Earth below.   More
(Source: Spsce.com - May 17)

CHINESE ROCKET COMPANY SUFFERS THIRD CONSECUTIVE LAUNCH FAILURE - An orbital launch attempt by Chinese startup iSpace suffered failure early Friday, following on from two failures last year. The fourth Hyperbola-1, a four-stage solid rocket, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 3:09 a.m. Eastern May 13. Apparent launch footage appeared on a Chinese social media site shortly after launch but a period of silence followed, extending well past the time at which a similar launch could have been declared successful.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 16)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 53 MORE STARLINK SATELLITES, LANDS ROCKET AT SEA AGAIN - SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites and landed the returning rocket on Saturday (May 14), its second such effort in less than 24 hours. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites lifted off Saturday at 4:40 p.m. EDT (2040 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket's first stage came back to Earth and landed at sea on the SpaceX droneship Just Read the Instructions about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 15)

BOEING'S STARLINER IS 'GO' FOR CRUCIAL MAY 19 LAUNCH TO THE SPACE STATION - Boeing's Starliner capsule is ready to launch again. During a flight readiness review Wednesday (May 11), NASA cleared Starliner to launch on Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), a crucial uncrewed mission to the International Space Station. The decision keeps the Boeing spacecraft on track to launch on May 19 at 6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 in coastal Florida — assuming no weather or technical issues arise.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 14)

BOEING, NASA TEAMS GIVE STARLINER FINAL GO FOR OFT-2 MISSION - NASA, Boeing, and ULA teams, along with international partners, have finished the agency Flight Readiness Review (FRR) ahead of the Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Following the valve issues that scrubbed OFT-2’s launch attempt in August of 2021 and the communication and software issues that caused Boeing’s first OFT mission to end prematurely, Boeing hopes to demonstrate the physical and software changes made to the spacecraft on this mission.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - May 13)

NOAA REVEALS FIRST IMAGES FROM NEW WEATHER SATELLITE - NOAA released the first imagery from the new GOES-18 weather satellite that launched March 1 from Cape Canaveral, and confirmed the spacecraft’s main camera doesn’t suffer the same cooling system problem that caused degraded vision in an earlier satellite. The first images from GOES-18 were captured May 5 from a position in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. GOES 18’s primary camera, called the Advanced Baseline Imager, recorded the views in 16 channels, each tuned to see clouds, dust, smoke, and water vapor in different wavelengths of light.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 13)

Previous Next