For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at noontime Saturday, Feb. 19, carrying the firms Cygnus commercial cargo craft loaded with over 4 tons of NASA science and supplies bound for the International Space Station (ISS) and its seven person international crew from the US, Russia
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a trio of contracts critical to carrying out the world’s first ever Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign in order to successfully retrieve and return the first ever soil and rock samples from the Martian surface to Earth – currently being gathered by the Perseverance rover and destined
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) snapped an absolutely stunning ‘selife’ of its 18 segment primary mirror as part of the initial alignment process in progress for the primary mirror – after the mammoth international observatory arrived at its final orbital destination at the L2 Lagrange Point on 24 Jan. 2022, sliding
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – It was a valiant effort that came up short as the 1st attempt by new launch provider Astra to launch their 3.3 rocket on an experimental demonstration mission sponsored by NASA failed to deliver four cubesats to low Earth orbit from Florida’s Spaceport, Thursday afternoon, Feb. 10, when an anomaly took place
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Barely one day after launching to their intended low earth orbit location on Thursday Feb. 3, a swarm of brand new SpaceX Starlink internet satellite were doomed to death when a geomagnetic storm hit Earth on Friday, Feb. 4, creating increased atmospheric particle density and drag that caused about 80% of
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – A T Zero telemetry issue detected upon ignition of the first stage engines forced Astra – a new small sat mission launch provider – to scrub the 2nd attempt to launch their 1st operational rocket on an orbital flight test from Cape Canaveral on a demonstration mission with four cubesats sponsored by
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Culminating an arduous two decade long development and million mile journey since launching on Christmas Day, the massive international James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finally arrived at its final orbital destination at the L2 Lagrange Point on 24 Jan. 2022, sliding gently into its new home a million miles from earth –
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM JETTY PARK, FL – Astra was forced to scrub the 1st attempt to launch their 1st operational rocket on an orbital flight test from Cape Canaveral on a cubesat mission sponsored by NASA due to a failure in a critical radar hardware system operated by the U.S. Space Force in the Eastern Range that must be
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – SpaceX launched its third Falcon 9 rocket in three days at lunch time Thursday, Feb. 3 and successfully delivered the next batch of Starlink high speed internet satellites to low Earth orbit while flying on a once rare southernly trajectory from Florida’s Spaceport – continuing a blistering launch pace opening 2022.
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – Under picture perfect sunset skies SpaceX staged a spectacular Falcon 9 rocket launch carrying the Italy’s COSMO-SkyMed radar remote sensing satellite (CSG-2) mission to polar orbit for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) on the fifth try Monday evening, Jan. 31, following a trio of weather scrubs and a fourth due