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Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars. It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos' company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon. The 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA's twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet. Liftoff was stalled four days by lousy local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida. In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control. Next stop, moon! company employees chanted following the successful
A successful model rocket launching test was conducted in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar district, marking the first time a payload was launched via a rocket from the state, officials said. The test conducted on Saturday by the Astronautical Society of India in association with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) saw the model rocket ascend 1.12 km at 5:14:33 PM, a complete success. ISRO scientist Abhishek Singh, who was present at the test site, said, "The rocket was launched at 5:14 PM and 33 seconds, which went up to a height of 1.1 km. After this, a small satellite (payload) came out. As soon as it fell down to 5 metres, its parachute activated and the satellite landed within 400 metres on the ground." The 15 kg rocket also descended safely. This test was part of IN-SPACe Model Rocketry/CANSAT India Student Competition 2024-25 and a prelude to a larger event in October-November, where around 900 ...
A privately owned lunar lander touched down on the moon with a drill, drone and rovers for NASA and other customers Thursday, but quickly ran into trouble and may have fallen over. Intuitive Machines said it was uncertain whether its Athena lander was upright near the moon's south pole standing 15 feet (4.7 meters) tall or lying sideways like its first spacecraft from a year ago. Controllers rushed to turn off some of the lander's equipment to conserve power while trying to determine what went wrong. It was the second moon landing this week by a Texas company under NASA's commercial lunar delivery programme. Sunday's touchdown was a complete success. The company's newest Athena lander dropped out of lunar orbit as planned. The hourlong descent appeared to go well until the final approach when the laser navigation system began acting up. It took a while for Mission Control to confirm touchdown. We're on the surface, reported mission director and co-founder Tim Crain. A few minutes
Blue Origin will try again to launch its massive new rocket as early as Tuesday after calling off the debut launch because of ice buildup in critical plumbing. The 320-foot New Glenn rocket was supposed to blast off before dawn on Monday with a prototype satellite. But ice formed in a purge line for a unit powering some of the rocket's hydraulic systems and launch controllers ran out of time to clear it, according to the company. Founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin said Tuesday's poor weather forecast could cause more delay. Thick clouds and stiff wind were expected at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The test flight already had been delayed by rough seas that posed a risk to the company's plan to land the first-stage booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic. New Glenn is named after the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn. It is five times taller than Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket that carries paying customers to the edge of space from Texas. Bezos found
Blue Origin called off the debut launch of its massive new rocket early Monday because of technical trouble. The 320-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket was supposed to blast off before dawn with a prototype satellite from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But launch controllers had to deal with an unspecified rocket issue in the final minutes of the countdown and ran out of time. Once the countdown clock was halted, they immediately began draining all the fuel from the rocket. Blue Origin did not immediately set a new launch date, saying the team needed more time to resolve the problem. The test flight already had been delayed by rough seas that posed a risk to the company's plan to land the first-stage booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic. New Glenn is named after the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn. It is five times taller than Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket that carries paying customers to the edge of space from Texas. Amazon's Jeff Bezos founded