February 25, 2013 |
Hawthorne-based rocket maker SpaceX is targeting Friday as the launch date for the next NASA cargo resupply flight to the International Space Station. The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., performed a successful resupply mission to the space station in October and a demonstration mission back in May. SpaceX is the only commercial company to perform such a task. Blastoff of the company's Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 7:10 a.m. PST from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
January 6, 2004 |
The international space station is experiencing a slow, steady drop in air pressure, and American and Russian flight controllers are investigating possible causes of the leak. Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri about the leak just before their bedtime Monday afternoon. "There's no action for you at this time and no immediate concerns," Mission Control told the two men.
March 13, 2008 |
Space shuttle Endeavour pulled up to the International Space Station and docked Wednesday, kicking off almost two weeks of demanding construction work. Before the late-night linkup, Endeavour's commander, Dominic Gorie, guided the shuttle through a 360-degree back flip to allow for full photographic surveillance. It's one of the many safety-related procedures put in place after the Columbia disaster in 2003.
May 19, 2012 |
SpaceX's historic launch to the International Space Station was aborted in the pre-dawn hours at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday when computers detected a problem with one of the rocket's nine engines and automatically shut down. Countdown to the launch, which was webcast on NASA TV , hit T-0 at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time when the rocket engines seemed to briefly light before the technical problem hit. Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and chief executive, tweeted shortly afterward : "Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.
May 25, 2012 |
For the first time, a cargo-carrying spacecraft made by a private company arrived at the International Space Station. SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft was captured by the space station's 58-foot robotic arm by astronaut Don Pettit aboard the space station. The linkup took place about 250 miles above northwest Australia at 6:56 a.m. PDT. "Looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail," Pettit confirmed. At that moment, engineers watching at SpaceX's control center at their Hawthorne headquarters, as well as NASA mission control in Houston, began cheering, with rounds of high-fives and handshakes.
December 17, 2013 |
It's official: NASA astronauts will have to step out into space to fix a faulty cooling loop at the International Space Station. Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins will take on the task, which will probably take two spacewalks and could stretch to three. The spacewalks, scheduled for Dec. 21, 23 and 25, come after engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston tried fiddling with a broken valve in a pump in an ammonia cooling loop to figure out what exactly was wrong with it. The pump was shut down last week after it failed to regulate the ammonia levels and it got too cold, NASA officials said.
June 17, 2007 |
Balky computers on the International Space Station were fully revived Saturday, but crew members admitted the problem had worried them and served as a reminder that spaceflight is dangerous. Station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov rewired the bank of computers to bypass a power outlet that NASA and Russian space officials believe may have caused the computers to crash Monday.
October 28, 2012 |
After spending three weeks in outer space, SpaceX's Dragon space capsule survived a fiery reentry of the Earth's atmosphere and splashed down hundreds of miles west of Southern California. When the unmanned cone-shaped capsule hit the water at 12:22 p.m. Pacific time Sunday, it marked the end of the mission carried out by the Hawthorne company officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The spacecraft delivered 882 pounds of supplies to the space station earlier this month and returned with 1,673 pounds of cargo.
October 8, 2012 |
Among the important cargo onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule is material to create Silly Putty as well as ice cream. And it's not that freeze-dried "astronaut" kind. The ice cream is tagging along on the space flight that launched Sunday night from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The capsule is expected to reach the International Space Station on Wednesday. The ice cream is encased in a GLACIER refrigerator, which is an ultra-cold freezer that stores samples at temperatures as low as minus 301 degrees Fahrenheit.