Page 14 - Launch Services Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

By Danielle Sempsrott  NASA’s Kennedy Space Center MOJAVE, Calif. — Ten NASA-sponsored CubeSats are preparing to fly on the agency’s next Educational Launch of Nanosatellites  (ELaNa) mission, making this the first payload carried by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket. With the small satellites safely secured inside the payload fairing, and the fairing mated to the rocket, Virgin Orbit is gearing up for ELaNa 20, the Launch Demo 2 flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. “This initiative actually enables the market for future CubeSats or future missions needing a r...

Blue Origin is now able to compete to launch future NASA missions on its New Glenn rocket in development. On Thursday, the agency announced that it has awarded Blue Origin a NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract.  The NLS II is a contract vehicle under which NASA places orders from commercial providers for launch services as part of its Launch Services Program (LSP). NASA has the option to annually on-ramp new launch service providers and also new launch vehicles from existing providers. NLS II is a multiple-supplier, multiple-award, Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract...

Illustration of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE). (Credit: Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems) The CAPSTONE mission will see Rocket Lab extend its reach far beyond Earth orbit for the first time to deploy an in-house designed and built Photon spacecraft to the Moon. Long Beach, Calif. (Rocket Lab PR) – Rocket Lab has reached a key milestone ahead of the company’s first launch to the Moon, with spacecraft qualification underway for the Photon spacecraft that will transport a NASA satellite into a unique lunar orbit that no othe...

Advertisement Ten NASA-sponsored CubeSats are preparing to fly on the agency’s next Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) mission, making this the first payload carried by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket. With the small satellites safely secured inside the payload fairing, and the fairing mated to the rocket, Virgin Orbit is gearing up for ELaNa 20, the Dec.19, 2020, Launch Demo 2 flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. “This initiative actually enables the market for future CubeSats or future missions needing a ride to space by providing differ...

Rocket company Astra returned to Kodiak last week to launch their newest rocket from Pacific Spaceport Complex — Alaska. Although initial efforts were scuttled because of inclement weather, the company will try another launch today.  On Friday, the Alameda-based rocket startup tweeted that the planned launch of their newest version, Rocket 3.2, had been pushed back because of high winds and triggered lightning.  “We are standing down today due to extreme upper-level wind shear and triggered lightning. We have daily launch opportunities through Dec. 18,” Astra said on Frid...