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 – 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 – 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
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PORT CANAVERAL/CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – With Pelicans patrolling under gloomy overcast skies the extremely sooty 9x flown to space and back SpaceX Falcon 9 recovered booster from the Starlink 4-1 mission was towed into Port Canaveral, Thursday morning, Nov. 18, standing upright upon the droneship it landed on post launch Nov. 13 and
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PORT CANAVERAL/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – All four deployed landing legs have been raised on the ‘flight-proven’ SpaceX Falcon 9 booster by late Monday evening, Nov. 15, just over 24 hours after it had returned back to Port Canaveral, Florida, Sunday evening, Nov. 14, for a rare and positively stunning nighttime arrival, following its launch of
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PORT CANAVERAL/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The ‘flight-proven’ SpaceX Falcon 9 booster that successfully launched the NASA ESA quartet of Crew-3 multinational astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on a spectacular Wednesday evening Nov. 10 liftoff and landed eight minutes later on a company droneship, returned to Port Canaveral, Florida four days later Sunday evening,
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM PORT CANAVERAL, FL – Scorched like a toasty marshmallow after surviving the scorching heats of reentry into Earth’s atmosphere upon departing the International Space Station (ISS) and safely splashing down in the Gulf Of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida, days ago on Monday evening, Nov. 8 – carrying a multinational quartet of astronauts back home from the
For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – After a days delay due to totally overcast and showery weather and with a dense Saturday morning fog spread all across the central Florida region, the thick layer of ground fog lifted just enough in literally the final minutes to unveil the tip of the payload housing nose cone