An engine test considered a key milestone to the inaugural launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was aborted Tuesday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The test ended two seconds before the engines ignited. Engineers will conduct a "full data review" today, and SpaceX said they would schedule another test fire attempt in the next three to four days. SpaceX already had put in a request with the U.S. Air Force to push back the first flight of the rocket to 12 April from 22 March. (Image Credit: SpaceX)
The Hubble 3D IMAX film makes its world premiere today in Washington, DC. NASA undertook one of its boldest missions in 2009 to repair and save the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Because there was not room inside the crew cabin of space shuttle Atlantis, the vehicle carried the IMAX camera in its payload bay, but the camera only had 8½ minutes of film to capture the 13-day mission. Nonetheless, the astronauts succeeded in capturing the essential elements of the mission, including Atlantis' approach to the telescope and moments during the five spacewalks to work on Hubble. (Image Credit: NASA)
A Delta IV rocket carrying GOES-P successfully lifted off on Thursday at 6:57 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After reaching orbit, GOES-P will become GOES-15. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P, or GOES-P, is the latest meteorological satellite designed to monitor storm development and weather conditions on Earth. GOES-P's state-of-the-art instrumentation will supply data used in weather monitoring, forecasting and warnings. It also will detect ocean and land temperatures, monitor space weather, relay communications and provide search-and-rescue support. (Image Credit: NASA)
Boeing recently said it won't have four 787 Dreamliners in the air until March, rather than February as initially planned, because it's still finishing some work and adding extra test equipment. The extra equipment will allow the plane to fly more often sooner in its flight-test schedule. This Dreamliner, the third built even though it will be the fourth to take flight, is outfitted to test passenger systems, and has been wired with instruments to test temperature and noise throughout the cabin. The delay shouldn’t impact the overall flight-test schedule. Boeing plans to have the Dreamliner certified for passengers and delivered to the first customer by the end of this year. (Image Credit: Boeing)
The USAF is preparing for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft. The first flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft, developed by Boeing, is currently scheduled for March. The X-51 will be carried aloft under the wing of a B-52 bomber. It will be released over the Pacific Ocean and drop for four seconds until its rocket motor ignites and accelerates it to about 5,800 km/h, just shy of the widely accepted start of hypersonic flight at Mach 5, or about 6,100 km/h. At that point, its air-breathing scramjet engine, built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, will kick in, shooting the aircraft to Mach 6, or more than 7,400 km/h. (Image Credit: Boeing)
