Enlarge / The primary stage of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket was lifted onto its launch platform this week in preparation for an April liftoff with two NASA astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Check. (credit score: United Launch Alliance)
Welcome to Version 6.32 of the Rocket Report! I am writing the report once more this week as Eric Berger is in Washington, DC, to obtain a well-earned honor, the 2024 Excellence in Industrial House Journalism Award from the Industrial Spaceflight Federation. Cape Canaveral is the world’s busiest spaceport, and this week, three main US launch firms have been energetic there. SpaceX launched one other Falcon 9 rocket, and some miles away, Blue Origin raised a New Glenn rocket on its launch pad for long-awaited floor testing. Close by, United Launch Alliance started assembling an Atlas V rocket for the primary crew launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in April. 2024 is shaping as much as be a very thrilling 12 months for the spaceflight neighborhood.
As all the time, we welcome reader submissions, and should you do not need to miss a difficulty, please subscribe utilizing the field under (the shape is not going to seem on AMP-enabled variations of the location). Every report will embrace data on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, in addition to a fast look forward on the subsequent three launches on the calendar.
Astroscale inspector satellite tv for pc launched by Rocket Lab. Astroscale, a well-capitalized Japanese startup, has launched a small satellite tv for pc to do one thing that has by no means been carried out in area, Ars studies. This new spacecraft, delivered into orbit on February 18 by Rocket Lab, will method a defunct higher stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket that has been circling Earth for greater than 15 years. Over the following few months, the satellite tv for pc will attempt to transfer inside arm’s attain of the rocket, taking footage and performing difficult maneuvers to maneuver across the bus-size H-IIA higher stage because it strikes across the planet at almost 5 miles per second (7.6 km/s).
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