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Photo credit Flying Jenny on Flickr Here in Cape Canaveral the windows were rattling as a powerful Delta IV rocket rumbled into space from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket is carrying a GPS satellite into space, the first of 30 that will eventually replace the global positioning satellites currently orbiting the earth. I wrote about this in this week's Surfin Safari column at WorldNetDaily. GPS, a constellation of 24 satellites with six backups, will be able to pinpoint your location within three feet, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more today. The U.S....

Air Force officials are scheduled to launch the U.S.'s newest and most advanced unmanned re-entry spacecraft April 21 at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla. The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle will provide a flexible space test platform to conduct various experiments and allow satellite sensors, subsystems, components and associated technology to be efficiently transported to and from the space environment where it will need to function. The X-37B will also prove new technology and components before they are committed to operational satellites. The OTV is the first vehicle since NASA's shuttle orbiter that has the ability to return experiments to Earth...

NASA on Friday cleared space shuttle Discovery for launch on April 5 on one of its final cargo runs to the International Space Station before the fleet is retired later this year. Liftoff of the spaceship and seven astronauts is targeted for 6:21 a.m. EDT (1021 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle will be carrying a cargo pod filled with science racks and equipment for the space station, which is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction 220 miles (350 km) above Earth. NASA has four flights remaining to finish outfitting the station, a...

secretive military spacecraft resembling a small space shuttle orbiter is undergoing final processing in Florida for launch on April 19. The Air Force confirmed the critical preflight milestone in a response to written questions on Thursday. The 29-foot-long, 15-foot-wide Orbital Test Vehicle arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla., last month according to the Air Force. The OTV spaceplane was built at a Boeing Phantom Works facility in Southern California. Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the OTV program is shrouded in secrecy, but military officials occasionally release information on the the spaceplane's progress. "It is now undergoing spacecraft processing...

American space transportation company SpaceX, which has designed the Falcon 9 heavy-lift launch vehicle, has aborted its test launch due to technical reasons. The two stage liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene propelled launch vehicle was scheduled to be test launched on March 9 but it encountered some problem just before the countdown, SpaceX said. "We counted down to an T-2 seconds and aborted on Spin Start. Given that this was our first abort event on this pad, we decided to scrub for the day to get a good look at the rocket before trying again," the company said. No damage...

Space Exploration Technologies aborted a test firing of its Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday, in what was to be a key milestone in its quest to fly cargo -- and eventually astronauts -- to the International Space Station. The test was aborted two seconds before engine ignition at the privately owned company's Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch site, where the Falcon 9 rocket is being prepared for a company-sponsored demonstration flight this spring. During the test, flames and small puffs of smoke could be seen around the base of the rocket via a NASA video camera. In a statement Tuesday night,...

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is beginning integration of the first Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and says it won’t be hurried to complete work despite continuing delays of the first launch. “Our primary objective is a successful first launch and we are taking whatever time necessary to work through the data to our satisfaction before moving forward,” says SpaceX director of Florida launch operations Brian Mosdell, who adds that the expected launch will take place “one to three months after completing full vehicle integration.” The final delivery to the SpaceX launch site, Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), included the...

U.S. Air Force officials are crafting plans for a 2011 demonstration of a Global Positioning System-tracking system for ascending rockets as part of a slow but comprehensive transformation of the Pentagon’s launch ranges. More than 50 years into the U.S. space launch program, the infrastructure designed to support rockets in some cases requires updating. In other cases, the government needs to off-load excess infrastructure that is no longer needed and focus efforts on more efficient satellite launch processing, says Lt. Gen. Larry James, 14th Air Force commander. The demonstration planned for 2011 is intended to prove the value of GPS...

Big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station

Washington, July 8 (Xinhua): The launch of NASA's Dawn spacecraft to explore two massive asteroids has been rescheduled to no earlier than Monday, July 9, NASA announced. The launch window for Dawn on Monday will be 3:56 p.m. to 4:26 p.m. EDT (1956 GMT to 2026 GMT). It will be sent into space by a Delta 2 rocket. The delay was prompted by difficulties with an aircraft that would gather data signals from the rocket during launch, and the availability of a tracking ship, NASA said in a statement. Also, the weather forecast at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The name of the new vehicle that NASA hopes will take astronauts back to the moon was supposed to be hush-hush until next week. But apparently U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams, floating 220 miles above Earth at the international space station, didn't get the memo. Williams, through no fault of his own, let it slip Tuesday that the new vehicle's name is Orion. "We've been calling it the crew exploration vehicle for several years, but today it has a name — Orion," Williams said, taping a message in advance for the space agency that was transmitted accidentally...

DWARDS AIR FORCE BASE – Space shuttle Discovery is tentatively scheduled to leave California on Friday, more than a week after it was diverted to the Mojave Desert in the first shuttle flight since the Columbia accident. Discovery's cross-country ferry to Cape Canaveral, Fla., expected to cost at least $1 million, has been postponed twice – first because of Monday's thunderstorms, then because of problems Wednesday in trying to attach a 10,000-pound aluminum tail cone to the shuttle to eliminate drag during flight.

Well since the Space Shuttle is landing at 4:45 am, I figure I start a live thread now (I won't be awake)...

The space shuttle Discovery, now in orbit, lost part of its heat-shield as it took off from Cape Canaveral on July 26. Ominously, so did the doomed shuttle Columbia. With Discovery's insulation compromised — as Columbia's was — no one knows whether Discovery will catch fire and explode on its return trip to earth, as Columbia did in 2003. For some reason, the space shuttle's insulation-shedding problem has not been successfully corrected more than two years after Columbia's destruction, which killed all seven members of its crew in temperatures that reached more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The ultimate cause of...

America held its breath Tuesday morning. Twice, it had seen what could happen when 4.5 million pounds is hurled skyward by 7.4 million pounds of thrust to achieve an orbit of the earth and then shed that energy for a safe, passenger-jet speed landing. Twice it had grieved. The Challenger lift off explosion in 1986 and the Columbia re-entry disaster of 2003 had taken 14 lives of men and women who had placed them in the hands of technology only to learn its implacable cruelty. Would the shuttle Discovery somehow redeem that trust? In a world where headlines are made...

Poised for Liftoff Space Shuttle Discovery rests in full view on the launch pad. Image above: The rolling back of Launch Pad 39B's Rotating Service Structure reveals orbiter Discovery. + Click for larger image. Image credit: NASA/KSC Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-114, NASA's Return to Flight mission, is set for Tuesday at 10:39 a.m. EDT. The launch pad's Rotating Service Structure (RSS) was rolled away from Discovery at 3:38 p.m. on Monday. When in place, the giant enveloping appendage is used to install payloads into an orbiter's cargo bay and provide protection from inclement weather. With the...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The third hurricane to hit NASA's spaceport in just over a month blew out more panels and left more gaping holes in the massive shuttle assembly building, but overall damage was not as severe as feared, a space agency official said Sunday. "Where there's obviously some more damage, it doesn't look appreciably worse than it did," said NASA spokesman George Diller, part of a 206-member team that spent the night barricaded inside the Kennedy Space Center. "We just had a prayer service with the base chaplain because we all felt so relieved that we came out...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite, scheduled to be launched on Saturday, Feb. 14, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Station, will include sophisticated nuclear test detection sensors from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). NNSA's advanced nuclear detonation detection payload, a primary detection system for nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere and space, will be the satellite's secondary payload. These space-based sensors, developed by NNSA's Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering, are used to monitor the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, and to deter proliferant nations from conducting nuclear tests. NNSA...

<p>CAPE CANAVERAL -- The Visitor Complex at Kennedy Space Center hopes to give tourists a shuttle "immersion experience" with a new attraction that could open as soon as 2006.</p> <p>In a year when attendance has continued a decline that began after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Visitor Complex is seeking to re-create the boost it got when it opened its Apollo/Saturn 5 Center in 1996.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 5 Atlantis to Orbit Credit: NASA Explanation: Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis...