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☆ English resort counts down to western Europe's first satellite launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Henry Nicholls | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Henry NichollsNEWQUAY, England, Jan 9 (Reuters) - An English surfing resort was counting down to the first launch of orbital satellites into space from western Europe on Monday, when Virgin Orbit's mission will transform the Cornish town of Newquay into the country's first spaceport. The "horizontal" launch will catapult the resort in southwest England, population 20,000 and famous for its reliable waves rolling off the Atlantic, into the limelight as western Europe's go-to destination for small satellites. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket, designed to carry large satellites, has also had delays. "Assuming that everything continues to look good we're currently tracking well for launch," a Virgin Orbit spokeswoman said on Sunday. The LEO sector is growing rapidly, spurred by satellite broadband companies such as Elon Musk's Starlink, Amazon and London-headquartered OneWeb.

ROME/PARIS, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Italy's Vega rockets have been grounded and an investigation is under way after the latest model failed on its second mission, destroying two Earth-imaging satellites and further complicating Europe's access to space on top of the war in Ukraine. A spokesperson for Arianespace said both the Vega C and its Vega predecessor had been grounded pending the findings of an investigative commission co-chaired by technical officials from the European Space Agency and Arianespace itself. Italy's Vega C rocket is due to play an increasingly crucial role in Europe's access to space after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine forced Arianespace to stop using Russian Soyuz vehicles. But Arianespace has been forced to scrap plans to announce a Vega C launch schedule for 2023 in coming weeks. Analysts said only a few operational alternatives to Vega C exist, such as potential rideshares aboard U.S.-based SpaceX's bigger Falcon 9 or Firefly Aerospace's new Alpha launcher, which can loft roughly half the payload weight of Vega C.Other options, though somewhat larger than Vega C, include rockets from Japan and India.

☆ T.O.P, DJ Steve Aoki among crew for Japanese billionaire’s SpaceX trip to moon
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Kriti Gandhi | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Friday named South Korean rapper T.O.P and DJ Steve Aoki among the eight artists and entertainers who will join him on a private SpaceX trip around the moon as early as next year. It follows Maezawa’s 12-day trip to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft last year. It still hasn’t even sunk in yet — and I’ve known for quite awhile,” Dodd said in a video posted after the announcement. U.S. Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu will be backup crew members for the trip, which has been years in the making. The eight-day mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship vehicle includes three days circling the moon, coming within about 125 miles of the surface.

☆ SpaceX's moon mission gets 8 more crew members
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The mission, called Dear Moon, was first announced in 2018. Dear Moon still advertises that its mission will take off in 2023, though SpaceX’s new rocket and spacecraft system, known as Starship, has yet to conduct its first orbital test flight. The Dear Moon mission crew includes (clockwise from top left): Tim Dodd, Yemi A.D., Choi Seung Hyun, Steve Aoki, Rhiannon Adam, Karim Iliya, Miyu (backup), Dev Joshi, Yusaku Maezawa, Brendan Hall and Kaitlyn Farrington (backup). Since the Dear Moon mission was first announced, Maezawa made his first journey to space, taking a self-funded, 12-day journey to the International Space Station. If early test flights of Starship are successful and the Dear Moon mission gets off the ground, Maezawa’s crew could be the first group of private citizens to venture beyond low-Earth orbit.

☆ NASA astronauts returning from space station on SpaceX capsule delayed by weather
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The astronauts — NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti with the European Space Agency — were scheduled to depart from the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Thursday morning. Aerospace company SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon spacecraft under a $2.6 billion contract with NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX renewed orbital human spaceflight capabilities from US soil in 2020 with the launch of its Demo-2 mission, which carried two NASA astronauts to the space station. The Crew-4 astronauts’ return to Earth comes less than a week after the Crew-5 astronauts arrived on a separate SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Since SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon under a fixed-price commercial contract, however, it retains ownership over the vehicle.

☆ SpaceX books another ride for a millionaire around the moon
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —SpaceX said Wednesday that it has booked yet another mission around the moon for a wealthy thrill-seeker on its forthcoming Starship spacecraft. He declined on Wednesday to share any financial information about the upcoming Starship mission. It’s not clear when the first crewed Starship mission will take off, however. But Starship is far bigger than anything that SpaceX — or any other rocket developer — has ever built. It’s expected to have more thrust than both NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which powered the moon landings of the mid-20th century, and the space agency’s new moon rocket, called SLS, or Space Launch System.

☆ SpaceX capsule heads to space station ferrying NASA crew and Russian
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-05 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

A high-ranking official of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said shortly after the launch that the flight marked “a new phase of our cooperation” with the U.S. space agency NASA. The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with a Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endurance, lifted off into clear skies at noon EDT (1600 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. As the spacecraft entered Earth orbit, Kikina radioed her thanks to NASA, Roscosmos and their International Space Station (ISS) partners for “giving us this great opportunity.”“We’re so glad to do it together,” Kikina said. The mission, designated Crew-5, marks the fifth full-fledged ISS crew NASA has flown aboard a SpaceX vehicle since the private rocket venture founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk began sending U.S. astronauts aloft in May 2020. Rounding out the crew from Japan’s space agency JAXA was veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata, 59, a robotics expert making his fifth voyage to space.

☆ NASA astronaut, Russian cosmonauts launch to space
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The spacecraft took off from the famed Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts — Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev.— on what is expected to be a six-month stay on the International Space Station. When Rubio and his Russian counterparts make it to the space station, they’ll be tag-teaming with astronauts from the United States, Russia and Europe. The fact that Rubio is traveling to space on a Russian Soyuz capsule is notable. That was answered in July when NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, confirmed that sharing seats on rocket rides to the space station would continue. Russian cosmonauts are now expected to fly on SpaceX capsules in addition to NASA astronauts sharing seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

☆ NASA, Russian space agency sign deal to share space station flights - Roscosmos
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-15 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] The NASA logo is seen at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the NASA/SpaceX launch of a commercial crew mission to the International Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 16, 2021. REUTERS/Joe SkipperJuly 15 (Reuters) - NASA and Russia's space agency Roscosmos have signed a long-sought agreement to integrate flights to the International Space Station, allowing Russian cosmonauts to fly on U.S.-made spacecraft in exchange for American astronauts being able to ride on Russia's Soyuz, the agencies said Friday. The two agencies had previously shared astronaut seats on the U.S. shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The U.S. space agency has said having at least one Russian and one American aboard the space station is crucial to keeping the laboratory running. "Flying integrated crews ensures there are appropriately trained crew members on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks," NASA said in a statement on Friday.

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