Covering All Things Florida
NASA’s Artemis II mission is progressing steadily with the recent arrival of the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage to the Kennedy Space Center. This event marks the beginning of months of assembly and testing of SLS before its roll out to LC-39B sometime next year.
SpaceX conducted a static-firing of the nine Merlin engines of a Falcon 9 booster first stage at SLC-40 last night as the company prepares to return to flight after a very rare in-flight failure on July 11.
After berthing in the Turn Basin by the Press Center yesterday, the Core Stage of Artemis II was offloaded today and moved into the VAB. The process began around 9 a.m. EDT and took nearly three hours until the 212-foot rocket traveled the relatively short distance—perhaps 1/2 kilometer—to the VAB.
Kennedy Space Center, FL – Today media gathered at KSC to greet the arrival of the NASA Pegasus barge ship carrying the iconic orange center core of the SLS Artemis ll rocket. It arrived about 10:30 this morning at the KSC Turning Basin where tugboats Termite and American position it at the dock so the rocket core can be unloaded and prepared for its truck journey to the nearby VAB son July 24th.
Rocket launches are happening weekly from America’s spaceports. Living in Ohio, I travel around the country chasing the next launch to photograph. But how do I know when the next launch will be? And with frequent delays and shifts in launch schedules, how do I know it’s still on?
Business is picking up for the Artemis teams at Kennedy Space Center — the core stage for Artemis 2 has arrived in Port Canaveral, after it traveled from its manufacturing site in Mississippi.
On July 11, 2024, SpaceX experienced a rare in-flight failure with its Falcon 9 rocket during the Starlink 9-3 mission. This mission aimed to deploy 20 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The launch initially appeared successful, but the second stage encountered an anomaly during its critical burn phase, which prevented the rocket from achieving its intended orbit.
In a statement released today, NASA stated that, “[Agency] and Boeing engineers are evaluating results from last week’s engine tests at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico as the team works through plans to return the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test from the International Space Station in the coming weeks.”
Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, announced last week that it has completed modernizing the four flight-proven RS-25 engines that will help power NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the Artemis IV mission. Artemis IV will be the first flight of the enhanced Block 1B configuration of the super-heavy-lift rocket and the last to use engines remaining in inventory from the space shuttle program.
Citing rising costs and continued delays, NASA announced today that it has canceled its VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission, which was planned to explore the Moon’s South Pole region for water ice.
Firefly Aerospace announced a leadership change after business hours this evening.
SpaceX has petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to permit the resumption of its Falcon 9 rocket flights, despite an ongoing investigation into a recent mission anomaly. The request comes just days after a malfunction during a Starlink mission led to the grounding of the reusable launch vehicles.
