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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...

Weather at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 41, where a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is nearly ready to fly with two communications satellites, is expected to be 70% "go" for liftoff on Tuesday, Oct. 4. Launch is set for 5:36 p.m. EDT. Atlas V will take two commercial communications payloads to orbit for SES, a Luxembourg-based satellite operator. They are labeled SES-20 and SES-21. It will fly an eastern trajectory. On Saturday, teams at Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A rolled a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from its hangar to the pad, setting the stage for liftoff...

SpaceX emerged as the federal government's preferred aerospace contractor during the Trump years, and the aforementioned leaked emails outline a concerted effort by United Launch Alliance, a chief SpaceX competitor jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to sour SpaceX's relationship with the Biden administration. The document itself included photos of Musk with President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, claimed that Musk "has had some controversial opinions about the coronavirus pandemic," and contained a lengthy section detailing Musk's staunchly anti-union past. "This is very helpfull!!!!" Solomon wrote in response. "I...

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...

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...

Acquiring space launch company Orbital ATK in an all-cash $7.8 billion merger, Northrop took possession of Orbital's Minotaur and Antares medium-lift rocket families. It acquired Orbital's ongoing project to build a new "OmegA" class heavy lift rocket as well, with which to compete against the likes of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for large commercial and military satellite launches. Northrop Grumman also inherited Orbital's ongoing NASA contract to resupply crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) with needed consumables under the agency's CRS-1 and CRS-2 "Commercial Resupply Services" contracts -- missions valued at as much as $14 billion across the...

The space tourism firm XCOR Aerospace Inc. announced plans in 2008 to launch its private two-seat Lynx space plane. Lynx was expected to fly paying space tourists to an altitude of about 38 miles above Earth, where passengers would experience 90 seconds of weightlessness. The company first estimated flight tests would begin in 2010, with private flights to follow soon after. Many space tourists bought into XCOR's Lynx model for the chance to briefly experience weightlessness at the edge of space. Having paid XCOR $100,000 for a ticket, customer Nael Hamameh thought his flight would come as early as 2011,...

Small flames could be seen igniting at the base of the engines before they quickly disappeared The rocket remained still. With favorable weather conditions, Saturday’s launch was originally slated for 8:06 p.m., but a brief stop in the countdown to troubleshoot a problem pushed the liftoff back to 8:15 p.m., the company said. All systems were “go” until the countdown was halted just seven second before liftoff after a problem was detected, ULA said. The attempt was cancelled for the night, but it was not clear when ULA will try again. ULA is working in conjunction with the Air Force’s...

Ground crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California raised a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on its launch pad earlier this month in preparation for liftoff May 5 with NASA’s InSight lander heading to Mars. The two-stage rocket was assembled in three pieces, beginning with the stacking of the Atlas 5’s first stage booster March 3 at Space Launch Complex 3-East. The first stage’s RD-180 main engine will burn a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen to send the InSight spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere during the first four minutes of the flight. The Atlas 5’s Centaur...

On Thursday, Virgin Orbit won a contract from the Air Force to carry "technology demonstration satellites" on its LauncherOne rocket by early 2019. The LauncherOne rocket will be "air launched" from a modified Boeing 747 called "Cosmic Girl." The contract follows Branson's quiet launch earlier this month of Vox Space, a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit, that will focus on military contracts. While there is plenty of room in space, the launchpad is becoming more crowded. That's good news for the Pentagon as it looks toward increased competition and embracing new technology like reusable rockets to lower launch costs. United Launch...

This mission was launched aboard a Delta IV Heavy configuration Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), which featured a center common booster core along with two strap-on common booster cores. The ULA Delta IV Heavy is currently the world's largest rocket, providing the nation with reliable and proven heavy lift capability. Each common booster core was powered by an RS-68A liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine producing 702,000 pounds of thrust. A single RL10 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine powered the second stage. The booster and upper stage engines are both built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. ULA constructed the Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle in...

Surveillance satellite launching Thursday atop Delta 4-Heavy rocket CAPE CANAVERAL — One of the largest satellites in the world will launch aboard America’s biggest operational booster Thursday, riding that power to a listening post 22,300 miles above the planet for its clandestine eavesdropping mission, all indications suggest. A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket will fly from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 37 at 1:59 p.m. EDT (1759 GMT). Although the duration of the day’s usable launch window has not been revealed, officials previously said liftoff would occur by 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT). Weather forecasters say there is a risk of...

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...

On April 7, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson said that the space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would be conducting its first unmanned test flights “later this year.” As it turns out, “later this year” meant “three weeks.” The company has announced that it had conducted the first flight of its New Shepard space vehicle yesterday. The propulsion module, powered by Blue Origin’s BE-3 rocket engine, took the New Shepard space capsule up to a speed of over Mach 3. The capsule then separated from the propulsion module and flew to an altitude of 307,000 feet before beginning...

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 first thing to notice is how rapidly Elon Musk's SpaceX is altering the market for government-sponsored rocket launches. Witness how frequently the words "to compete with SpaceX" appear in industry statements and press coverage. To compete with SpaceX, say multiple reports, the United Launch Alliance, the Pentagon's traditional supplier, is developing a new Vulcan rocket powered by a reusable engine designed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. Because of SpaceX, says Aviation Week magazine, Japan's government has instructed Mitsubishi to cut in half the cost of the Japanese workhorse rocket, and China is planning a new family of kerosene-fueled Long...

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...

Elon Musk isn’t afraid to shake things up, and he did so again with accusations that US defense contracts awarded to a competitor were the product of corruption. SpaceX, Musk’s orbital transport firm, has been competing for a major contract to put US Air Force satellites in orbit. With a dearth of private investment in space and the end of the US space shuttle program, SpaceX has quickly leapt to the fore of aerospace firms with the help of contracts from NASA to provide re-supply missions to the International Space Station and develop a manned spacecraft to fly astronauts there....