For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA’s newest X-Ray astronomy mission, the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) space telescope is set to launch overnight just past midnight Thursday, Dec. 9 on a used SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Space Coast And the weather outlook is quite excellent with relatively warm
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket launched overnight before dawn Tuesday, Dec. 7 on a flawless mission delivering the $1 Billion STP-3 space technology demonstration mission including two co-manifested satellites facilitating both U.S national security with a nuclear detonation detection payload and NASA high speed communications research
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – United Launch Alliance (ULA) is retargeting the Atlas V rocket launch of the $1 Billion STP-3 space technology demonstration mission facilitating both U.S national security and NASA high speed communications research for overnight early Tuesday morning, Dec. 7, following two back-to-back scrubs when a leak of RP-1 propellant was
CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – BREAKING NEWS: Just as I was writing this preview story for the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket launch of the $1 Billion STP-3 space technology demonstration mission aiding both U.S national security and NASA high speed communications research scheduled for overnight Sunday morning, Dec. 5, the company just announced at least
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – Following a late, same day confirmation a 9x recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off with a jam packed nose cone loaded with 4 dozen upgraded Starlink internet satellites and two Black Sky earth imaging observation satellites just past sunset at dinnertime Thursday evening, Dec. 2 from Florida’s Space Coast
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The International Space Station (ISS) looks absolutely gorgeous in 10 stunning new images dramatically backdropped by Earth and the blackness of space and taken by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet from SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around maneuver after undocking from the orbiting outpost for the return trip home in early
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Russia’s new Prichal multiport docking node module successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Nov. 26, 2021 propelled by a modified Russian Progress cargo spacecraft – marking the final Russian module contribution to the orbiting research outpost. See hi-res Roscosmos video/photos below Prichal, which means pier in Russian, will serve
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Blue Origin is moving closer to the maiden launch of their commercial New Glenn orbit class rocket following delivery of the pathfinder mockup booster to the firms launch facility at pad 36 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in mid-November. The pathfinder simulator booster known officially as GS-1 was transported horizontally
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – A SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft overnight Wednesday, Nov. 24, starting the world’s first full-scale mission to defend Earth by testing technology to smash into a potentially hazardous incoming asteroid on a collision course with our Home Planet and threatening humanity’s future – by firing
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Hearkening back to a Hollywood like thriller NASA is on the cusp of launching DART – the agency’s first ever Planetary Defense mission purposefully directed towards a near Earth binary asteroid system with a kinetic impactor to determine if its trajectory can be altered and deflected and thereby simulate saving Earth and