Latest Spaceport Stories

The European Space Agency says it has postponed the Herschel and Planck spacecraft launch that was initially planned for April 16. The ESA said the Herschel and Planck missions will study the formation of stars and galaxies and the relic radiation from the Big Bang. The spacecraft are to be lifted into space in a dual launch configuration by an Ariane ECA rocket. ESA officials said the decision to postpone the launch was needed to finalize the validation of the spacecraft's operational...

In order to carry out additional checks on the ground segment of the Herschel and Planck programmes, Arianespace and ESA have jointly agreed to postpone the launch initially planned for next April 16. A new launch date will be announced at the end of March. The decision to postpone the launch by a few weeks was needed to finalise the validation of the spacecraft operations procedures following recent software updates.In the meantime, the preparation of the two spacecraft for launch...

Following Herschel's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the spacecraft has been unpacked and inspected. After an initial visual inspection, the telescope mirror, the largest ever to fly in space, was cleaned thoroughly to prepare it for launch.The spacecraft arrived in Kourou on 12 February. Before the container was opened a day later, it was flushed with dry gaseous nitrogen, ensuring that the difference in pressure inside and outside of the container prevented any...

The European Space Agency says it is preparing to move its Herschel and Planck spacecraft to Europe's spaceport in Kouron, French Guiana, within two weeks. Herschel and Planck are scheduled to be launched into space in a dual launch configuration April 16. Herschel will study the formation of stars and galaxies and Planck is designed to investigate the relic radiation from the Big Bang, officials said. Herschel underwent testing at the ESA's Space Research and Technology Center in Noordwijk,...

NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center will provide propulsion system acceptance testing for the Taurus II space launch vehicle, which Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., is developing. The first Taurus II mission will be flown in support of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services cargo demonstration to the International Space Station. The demonstration currently is planned for the end of 2010 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.Orbital's Taurus II design...

NEW YORK, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Space took a giant leap closer to earth today, following the launch of a new joint venture between Rocket Racing, Inc. (RRI), Armadillo Aerospace and the government of New Mexico. With a goal of sending adventurers into suborbital space with a target price of $100,000 per ticket or less, the three companies unveiled plans to field a fleet of reusable Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles (RLV) that will take flight from Spaceport America near Las...

President Dmitri Medvedev oversaw the test firing of an intercontinental Topol missile on Sunday and vowed to commission new generation weapons for Russian armed forces. Russian nuclear submarines also successfully test fired two ballistic missiles from the Pacific Ocean and Barents Sea to targets inside Russia, the navy said. Medvedev, who was sworn in as president in May, has moved to strengthen Russia's armed forces after a five-day conflict in Georgia this August which stirred tensions...

Officials with Russia's space program said Saturday that a number of safety improvements have been made for spacecrafts returning to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS).The announcement follows a series of rough landings, including two malfunctions with the Soyuz re-entry vehicle during the past year. The mishaps raised safety concerns about the craft's reliability, with one South Korean astronaut saying she feared death during a landing in April.However, Anatoly Perminov, chief...

An Austin, Texas, man in Kazakhstan is set to become the world's sixth space tourist and the first second-generation space traveler from the United States. Richard Garriott, 47, a computer game developer, is due to launch Oct. 12 from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Space.com reported Friday. Garriott's father, Owen, 77, is a retired astronaut from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "I'm just very...

Text of report by privately-owned Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency Almaty, 7 October: The National Space Agency of Kazakhstan (Kazkosmos) does not rule out that in future, Russia may abandon the use of the Baykonur [space ground] and it [Kazkosmos] develops plans on the further functioning of the space centre. In particular, the deputy chairman of Kazkosmos, Meyrbek Moldabekov, noted at a Kazakh-Ukrainian scientific and practical conference entitled "Modern space technologies" in Almaty on...