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The Boeing Starliner spacecraft approaching the ISS. @ NASA =================================================================================== It’s been nearly two months since Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) for its first crewed test flight. Despite several technical mishaps that have delayed Starliner’s return to Earth, NASA has continuously insisted that the vehicle is capable of carrying the crew back. Recent reports, however, suggest the space agency is looking at alternatives to bring two astronauts home safely. NASA officials are considering delaying the launch of SpaceX’s Crew 9 mission from August 18 to September 24, and putting two astronauts instead of four on...

The first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spaceship was dramatically called off just two hours before launch after a new safety issue was identified, officials said Monday, pushing back a high-stakes test mission to the International Space Station. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were strapped into their seats preparing for liftoff when the call for a "scrub" came, because engineers noticed audible buzzing from a liquid oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V rocket meant to propel the capsule into orbit. In a late night press conference, Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance (ULA) that built...

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission at 4:04 a.m. EST (0904 GMT) Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. STP-3 was originally supposed to launch on Sunday (Dec. 5), but that plan was nixed after crews discovered a leak in the ground system that stores rocket propellant at Cape Canaveral. Fixing the leak and verifying that all is now well with the system resulted in a 48-hour delay... STP-3...

Liftoff is at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT) Designated Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Flight 5 (SBIRS Geo-5), the mission marks ULA's first launch so far this year. However, the company has a busy summer planned, including the launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station. That mission, called OFT-2, will be the spacecraft's second uncrewed orbital flight test. The first, which occurred in Dec. 2019, failed to reach the space station due to a software issue. Following a successful second flight test, Boeing will launch its first crew of astronauts later this year. Weather...

Early Saturday evening, SpaceX hopes to embark on its 28th Starlink mission, sending another cluster of 60 broadband internet network satellites into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. That launch is at 6:54 p.m. ET and will lift off from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Then, on Monday, United Launch Alliance hopes to send up an Atlas V rocket with the S-B-I-R-S GEO-5 missile detection and early warning satellite for the U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The rocket is poised to lift off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. That launch...

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has been attached to the top of the rocket that will send it toward the Red Planet this summer. Encased in the nose cone that will protect it during launch, the rover and the rest of the Mars 2020 spacecraft – the aeroshell, cruise stage, and descent stage – were affixed to a United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster on Tuesday, July 7, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Central Florida. The process began when a 60-ton hoist on the roof of the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 lifted the nose cone,...

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the Solar Orbiter spacecraft for NASA and the European Space Agency tonight. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a 2-hour launch window that opens at 11:03 p.m. EST (0403 GMT on Feb. 10).

Now the capsule will be mated on top of the rocket that will take it to space — an Atlas V manufactured by the United Launch Alliance. On December 17th, the rocket and capsule are slated to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida — without any crew members on board — and then dock with the International Space Station. If successful, this demonstration mission could pave the way for NASA astronauts to fly on the Starliner sometime next year. Boeing has been developing the Starliner spacecraft for NASA as part of the space agency’s Commercial Crew program, an initiative to...

NASA's Mars InSight rover is on its way to the red planet. The Atlas V rocket carrying the rover into space launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 4:05 a.m. on Saturday, May 5. Video http://www.ksby.com/story/38119490/rocket-carrying-mars-rover-launches-from-vandenberg-afb

Dream Chaser will launch atop the commercial Atlas V in its most powerful configuration, dubbed Atlas V 552, with five strap on solid rocket motors and a dual engine Centaur upper stage while protectively tucked inside a five meter diameter payload fairing – with wings folded. Blast off of Dream Chaser loaded with over 5500 kilograms of cargo mass for the space station crews will take place from ULA’s seaside Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The unique lifting body design enables runway landings for Dream Chaser, similar to the NASA’s Space Shuttle at the...

The outcome of dueling versions of the National Defense Authorization Act could determine how much the U.S. lines Russia's pockets before what some lawmakers hope is a speedy transition to a domestically produced rocket engine. The RD-180 engine is built by NPO Energomash, a manufacturer mostly owned by the Russian Federation. It's used in the Atlas V rocket, built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing's United Launch Alliance. The House version of the NDAA approves all of the 18 requested engines. In the Senate, where there has been a lengthy battle over buying from Russia, the NDAA authorizes nine engines. Either...

ULA was formed in 2006 as a 50:50 joint venture between aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing that combined their existing expendable rocket fleet families – the Atlas V and Delta IV – under one roof. According to Reuters, Aerojet Rocketdyne recently proffered a $2 billion cash offer to buy ULA from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “Aerojet Rocketdyne board member Warren Lichtenstein, the chairman and chief executive of Steel Partners LLC, approached ULA President Tory Bruno and senior Lockheed and Boeing executives about the bid in early August,” sources told Reuters. ULA’s Bruno declined to comment on the story via...

Explanation: Early morning risers along Florida's Space Coast, planet Earth, were treated to a launch spectacle on September 2nd. Before dawn an Atlas V rocket rose into still dark skies carrying a US Navy communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station into Earth orbit. This minutes long exposure follows the rocket's arc climbing eastward over the Atlantic. As the rocket rises above Earth's shadow, its fiery trail becomes an eerie, noctilucent exhaust plume glinting in sunlight. Of course, the short, bright startrail just above the cloud bank is Venus rising, now appearing in planet Earth's skies as the brilliant...

Space makes for strange relationships. With NASA’s Space Shuttle shuttered since 2011, American astronauts have hitched rides to the International Space Station inside Russian Soyuz rockets for the past four years. But ever since Russia claimed Crimea and supported a separatist movement in Ukraine, the United States and Russia haven’t exactly been on great terms. Congress passed punitive sanctions on Russia, and in retaliation, Russia forbade the sale of rocket engines to the American military. Yet the Pentagon, which is currently supplying the Ukrainian military with vehicles, now needs a little help getting its military satellites to space. So it's...

How much can you pack on top of one rocket? A United Launch Alliance Atlas V is carrying up the U.S. Air Force's so-called secret space plane, The Planetary Society's solar sail, and several CubeSats, or tiny satellites. The launch window is Wednesday from 10:45 a.m. ET and 2:45 p.m. ET at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. You can watch it on a webcast starting at 10:45 a.m. ET. The Air Force space plane is actually called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This is the fourth mission for the plane. It looks like a small space shuttle, but...

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, an Atlas V rocket lifts off carrying NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission into Earth orbit 10 days ago to study the workings of the magnetosphere that surrounds and protects the Earth. From a standing start, the 300,000 kilogram rocket ship left to circle the Earth...

Following the catastrophic Oct. 28 failure of Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket on a critical resupply mission to the space station for NASA, the company is seeking to quickly make up the loss to NASA by announcing the selection of the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance to launch Orbital’s next Cygnus cargo ship to the orbital science lab.

In a surprise turn of events, U.S. space industry behemoth United Launch Alliance, or ULA, and Blue Origin — a secretive space startup owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos — have unveiled an American rocket engine that may end Russia's supremacy in the field. [....] The development of the engine, known as the Blue Engine 4, or BE-4, will certainly strike NPO Energomash, Russia's premier rocket engine design firm, analysts say.

The orbital airframe structure for the first commercial Dream Chaser mini-shuttle that will launch to Earth orbit just over two years from now has been unveiled by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and program partner Lockheed Martin. Sierra Nevada is moving forward with plans for Dream Chaser’s first launch and unmanned orbital test flight in November 2016 atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The winged Dream Chaser is being developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program aimed at restoring America’s indigenous human spaceflight access to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS).

Lawmakers and top military officials on Wednesday expressed fears that friction with Russia could someday leave the United States without the power to launch rockets into space. Reliance on a single Russian engine to launch many critical military satellites could come back to haunt the U.S., officials said, if tensions between the two nations continue to rise. “If you consider space a national security priority, then you absolutely have to consider assured access to space a national security priority,” Gen. William Shelton, commander of the Air Force’s space command, testified in a joint Senate committee hearing on Wednesday. “Given that...