Covering All Things Florida
If Northrop Grumman and Space X are supposed to be competitors, why is Space X launching the upcoming NG-21 mission for Northrop Grumman? The answer lies in recent history and the rapidly changing world of geo-politics.
Cape Canaveral, FL — On July 30, 2024, United Launch Alliance (ULA) will reach a milestone of sorts with the launch of the USSF-51 mission aboard an Atlas V rocket. The launch will be from Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station , and is scheduled for 6:45AM. This mission is not only important for the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) but also the last national security mission that the ULA will execute using the workhorse Atlas V rocket. Future national security launches will be utilize the new ULA Vulcan booster.
It is Northrop Grumman’s tradition to name each Cygnus spacecraft in honor of individuals who have made substantial contributions to human spaceflight. NG-21, the upcoming Cygnus resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), is now officially named the S.S. Francis R. “Dick” Scobee. Scobee is a former NASA astronaut whose contributions to aeronautics and space exploration have left a lasting legacy. The mission will launch no earlier than Saturday, August 3rd from Cape Canaveral.
Cape Canaveral, FL – After a brief grounding by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket and deployed its Starlink Group 10-9 satellites early in the morning on July 28, 2024. This launch marked the company’s return to flight status following an anomaly during a mission earlier in the month.
NASA’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will be making its final splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean next year . The upcoming Crew-9 mission, set to launch no earlier than August 18, 2024, could be the last to conclude with a landing off the U.S. East Coast.
SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 carrying twenty-three Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Pad LC-39A early Saturday morning. The launch window for the Falcon 9’s “return to flight” opens at 12:21 AM EDT on July 27 and extends until 04:21 AM the same day. If needed, the company has a backup launch window at the same time, twenty-four hours later, on July 28.
SpaceX has been cleared to resume launching Falcon 9 by the FAA. Almost immediately afterward, the company announced a launch of the venerable rocket from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center early Sunday morning.The company stated that the Starlink 9-3 mishap in a statement on their website “The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line,” SpaceX said.
NASA’s Steve Stich and Boeing’s Mark Nappi provided an update on the Boeing Starliner CFT flight today in a teleconference. They stated that while no return date has been set for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return aboard the spacecraft, the agency and Boeing are relatively close to a Readiness Review that must be conducted prior to Starliner undocking from ISS and returning to Earth. According to NASA, that review may come as soon as the end of next week — or August 2, 2024.
“I think we’re starting to close in on those final pieces of the flight rationale to make sure that we can come home safely,” said Steve Stich.
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.
