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 by Staff Writers Colorado Springs (AFP) April 11, 2019
SpaceX postponed Wednesday what would have been its first commercial launch with the Falcon Heavy rocket, citing strong wind in the upper atmosphere. The next window for the mission is Thursday, the company said. The rocket is to carry a Saudi satellite operated by Arabsat, a year after sending founder Elon Musk's red Tesla roadster into orbit as a test. The Falcon Heavy had been scheduled to lift off from the Kennedy Space center in Florida at 6:36 pm (2236 GMT) and place the six-ton Arabsat-6A satellite into geostationary orbit about 22,500 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the Earth. Because of the winds, this was later pushed back by about two hours, to the very end of the launch window. Now it has been scrapped until Thursday. SpaceX has two operational rockets: the Falcon 9, which with 21 launches in 2018 dominates the US market, and the Falcon Heavy, which as its name suggests is designed to lift much heavier payloads into more distant orbits. It consists of the equivalent of three Falcon 9 rockets combined, tripling its thrust. SpaceX will attempt to re-land the rocket's three boosters. In its first launch, in February 2018, a dummy dubbed Starman was placed behind the wheel of Musk's roadster, which is currently orbiting the Sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. Since then, the US military and private clients have signed contracts for Falcon Heavy launches, and NASA has raised the possibility it may use the rocket for its planned missions to the Moon. ico/jm/ft/dw/it
SpaceX Dragon 2 pulls off nail-biting landing - here's the rocket science London, UK (The Conversation ) Mar 15, 2019 A fiery Dragon lit up the sky over the Atlantic before cooling off with a watery splashdown on March 8. The SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule is of enormous significance for spaceflight as it has just become the first commercial vehicle to automatically dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth. The spacecraft will now aim to carry astronauts to the ISS in a few months. When docked to the ISS, the Dragon capsule was orbiting the Earth at a speed of 27,600km per hour, about 400km ab ... read more
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