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A private rocket NASA is counting on to make robotic cargo flights to the International Space Station achieved a key milestone today (Oct. 1), as its first stage rolled out to its Virginia launchpad for the first time. The first stage of Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket arrived today at its pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), which is located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. The move marks the beginning of on-pad preparations for a series of important trials with Antares that will take place over the next few months, Orbital officials said. The company aims to...

For the second time in two days, a Syrian rocket has hit Israel. The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon. The rocket hit an open area in the Golan Heights near the border with Syria. No injuries or property damage was reported. The Israel Defense Forces deduce that the rocket was the result of stray fire from the on-going Syrian civil war. On Tuesday, two mortar shells landed in the Golan Heights from Syria. No injuries or property damage was reported. The IDF submitted an official complaint to the United Nations ...

BEIRUT, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on Tuesday in the Libyan city of Benghazi, a Libyan official said.

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U.S. officials secretly visited N. Korea ahead of rocket launch: report SEOUL (Kyodo) -- U.S. officials secretly visited North Korea last month days before its April 13 long-range rocket launch in an unsuccessful bid to get Pyongyang to call off the launch, a local news report said Friday. The officials flew into Pyongyang around 8 a.m. on April 7 and left later the same day, according to Reset KBS, an online broadcasting channel. The U.S. side and the South Korean government did not notify South Korea's air force of the flight, which passed through South Korean airspace. As a result,...

Updated 4/29/2012By Stephen Singer The Associated PressHARTFORD, Conn. Less than a year after NASA ended its shuttle program, players in America's space business are casting around for new direction.United Technologies Corp. is the most recent company to announce it will sharply scale back its role in space exploration. It's selling Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a manufacturer of rocket engines and liquid-propulsion systems...[snip] Greg Hayes, chief financial officer at United Technologies, rapped U.S. space policy when he announced the decision in mid-March to sell Rocketdyne."Growth will be limited at Rocketdyne," Hayes told investor analysts. "It's still a very good business. It's...

Rocket: Atlas 5 Payload: AEHF 2 Date: May 4, 2012 Window: 2:42 to 4:42 p.m. EDT (11:42 a.m. - 1:42 p.m. PDT) Launch Site: SLC-41, Cape Canaveral, Florida After helium purge problem kept the Atlas 5 rocket on the pad Thursday afternoon, a second launch attempt is getting underway today to deploy a sophisticated and critical communications spacecraft for the U.S. government. The countdown clocks just began ticking, beginning a seven-hour sequence of work that will prepare the rocket, payload and ground systems for today's blastoff at 2:42 p.m. EDT (1842 GMT). The day's two-hour launch window stretches to 4:42...

Rocket: Atlas 5 Payload: AEHF 2 Date: May 3, 2012 Window: 2:46 to 4:46 p.m. EDT Site: SLC-41, Cape Canaveral, Florida Feed: SES 2, Transp. 21, C-band, 87° West Watch live coverage here: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av031/status.html or here: http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/pages/Webcast.shtml Welcome to liftoff day for the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying the Air Force's next durable and secure communications satellite in the Advanced Extremely High Frequency series. The countdown clocks are starting to tick right now, beginning a seven-hour sequence of work that will prepare the rocket, payload and ground systems for today's blastoff at 2:46 p.m. EDT (1846 GMT). Soon...

Pyongyang must remember to heed China's advice Global Times | April 17, 2012 01:18 By Global Times Pyongyang must remember to heed China's advice The UN Security Council issued a statement Monday strongly condemning North Korea for trying to launch a satellite last week. China voted for the decision. The statement calls for stricter sanctions on North Korea. It also says that if North Korea continues satellite launches or nuclear tests, the Security Council will take further action. China has taken a clear attitude in condemning Pyongyang. Some analysts take it as a result of North Korea neglecting China's discouragement...

2nd rocket still at N. Korea's launch site after failed launch SEOUL (Kyodo) -- Another rocket is still at the North Korean launch site from where the North attempted to launch a rocket carrying what it said was a satellite last Friday, raising speculation the North may attempt yet another launch, a South Korean government source told Kyodo News on Friday. North Korea moved two rockets to the launch site in Tongchang-ri near the northern border with China on March 23 from a factory in Pyongyang and the second, believed to be of the same type of the one blasted...

Experts Ponder Cause of N.Korean Rocket Failure North Korea's rocket exploded two minutes and 15 seconds after launch, disintegrated into some 20 fragments and fell into the West Sea. The North unusually admitted the failure. Rocket experts attribute it to a problem with the first-stage booster, failed separation of boosters or a rushed launch schedule. â—† Booster Problems The first-stage booster exploded into about 20 fragments scattered over waters west of Taean far away from the point west of the Byeonsan Peninsula where the regime had predicted they would land. About 56 percent of launch failures are caused by a...

Multi-nation search for debris begins for failed North Korean rocket 4:33 AM, Apr 13, 2012 (CBS/AP) PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea's much-anticipated rocket launch ended quickly in an embarrassing failure early Friday, splintering into pieces over the Yellow Sea soon after takeoff and setting off an international search effort for the debris to gain insight into what went wrong and what rocket technology the country has. Within minutes of the early morning launch, the U.S. and South Korea declared it a failure. North Korea acknowledged that hours later in an announcement broadcast on state TV, saying the satellite had...

A N. Korean official at a media center of a hotel in Pyongyang on Apr. 13 (probably after launch failure)

How failed North Korea rocket could lead to a fresh nuclear test The UN Security Council is likely to rap North Korea for its rocket launch, and a defiant North Korea could respond with a nuclear test – following By Don Kirk, Correspondent / April 12, 2012 North Korea’s vaunted long-range Unha 3 rocket roared off its launch pad early Friday, broke into several pieces and plunged into the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China slightly more than one minute later, South Korean defense officials said. /snip North Korea is also expected to remain defiant while the United Nations...

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North Korea launched a three-stage rocket from a missile base near the west coast city of Sinuiju today, claiming that it was carrying a weather satellite of purely civilian use. Its projected trajectory was almost due south on a course 150 miles east of Shanghai. The second stage of the rock was to splash down east of the Philippines, which prompted Manila to cancel northbound flights as a precaution. Initial network news reports said the rocket failed during flight.

North Korea said Wednesday that the fuelling of a long-range rocket is under way, ahead of the launch scheduled for later this week despite international protests. "We are injecting fuel as we speak. It has started," Paek Chang-Ho, director of the satellite control centre on the outskirts of the capital Pyongyang, told visiting foreign journalists.

North Korea says fuel being injected into rocket (Reuters) - Isolated North Korea said on Wednesday it was injecting fuel into a long-range rocket "as we speak" ahead of a launch condemned by its neighbors and the West as a disguised long-range ballistic missile test. The launch, set to take place between Thursday and next Monday, has prompted neighbors such as the Philippines to re-route their air traffic just in case. Regional powers also worry it could be the prelude to another nuclear test, a pattern the hermit state set in 2009. Japan said it would shoot down the rocket...

North Korea has moved into place a long-range rocket for a controversial launch later this month - amid reports it is also planning a nuclear test. Pyongyang says the Unha-3 rocket, which it plans to launch between 12 and 16 April, will put a satellite into orbit. But opponents of the move fear it is a disguised long-range missile test. Meanwhile, South Korean officials say new satellite images suggest the North is preparing to carry out a third nuclear test. The images show piles of earth and sand at the entrance of a tunnel at the Punggye-ri site, where tests...

US: Debris from NKorea rocket risks casualties WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior U.S. military official says debris from a planned North Korean rocket launch could cause casualties. Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Lavoy told a congressional hearing Wednesday that North Korea has indicated the rocket will be launched southward, but the U.S. lacks confidence about the rocket's stability and where the impact will be.