Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine — Mykhail Podolyak barely flinched as air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv, signaling incoming Russian missiles. Sitting in his office at the heavily fortified presidential administration building in Ukraine’s capital, the adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the sirens have become a normal part of life six months into the war with Russia. “We’re getting used to this new lifestyle — we are used to the wailing sirens now and to the bombardments, because the Russian Federation is mostly aiming at the civilian population and civilian infrastructure,” he said in an...

Ticket sales for the Artemis 1 launch, which is targeted for Aug. 29, were so popular after opening Tuesday (Aug. 2) that the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's website was briefly overwhelmed, Florida Today reported(opens in new tab) late last week. A "quick fix" to the website, however, allowed the complex to sell out two of the three package deals within 2.5 hours of opening ticket sales, the report added. The news comes amid expectations that more than 100,000 people will show up on the Space Coast of Florida, which includes the Kennedy Space Center and the nearby Cape Canaveral...

This is a replay of the live stream. The upper stage engine shut down early, causing a mission failure. Launch window: 12:00 - 2:00 pm EDT (16:00 - 18:00 UTC) Launch site: SLC-46, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida Destination: Low Earth Orbit A commercial small satellite launch vehicle developed by Astra will launch the first pair of small CubeSats for NASA’s TROPICS mission. The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats, or TROPICS, mission will measure environmental and inner-core conditions for tropical cyclones. Delayed from April. Thanks to NASASpaceflight and Chris Bergin for...

Former President Donald Trump’s media company is planning on launching a new streaming service featuring “non-woke content.” According to a May 16 filing by Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the former president’s media company plans to launch a subscription-based streaming service called “TMTG+” that features “non-woke” content, aims to “cancel ‘cancel culture,’” and commits to not censoring content creators for their political ideology. “TMTG believes that there is a need for quality programming that does not lecture its viewers or only presents one ‘acceptable’ approach on a topic. Entertainers, comedians, and creators have frequently been agents for change in...

An unknown foreign military in southeast Asia has reportedly test launched an SLBM, or submarine-launched ballistic missile, which appears to have endangered a nearby commercial aircraft full of people. Stunning video taken from a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 as it flew over the South China Sea just as the unidentified submarine launched the missile shows the airliner remarkably close. The Drive reports that it was likely a test of either the Chinese or South Korean military, but not even the precise date of the event has been confirmed at this point: Twitter user @jchovernut, a pilot for U.S.-based airline Allegiant...

SpaceX and NASA are targeting no earlier than Wednesday, April 27 for Falcon 9’s launch of Crew-4, Dragon’s fourth science expedition mission to the International Space Station, from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch is targeted for 3:52 a.m. ET (7:52 UTC), with a backup opportunity available on Thursday, April 28.

North Korea is preparing for its first nuclear bomb test in nearly five years, government sources in South Korea have told local media. Kim Jong Un's secretive regime appears to be hastily constructing a 'shortcut' to a tunnel at its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri in preparations for a seventh underground nuclear detonation, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Sunday. Warnings of the nuclear test, which would be the first since September 17, come just days after the North test-fired its massive Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which could deliver a warhead anywhere in the United States.

Unconfirmed for now, but this is now the second photo/video I've seen of a possible S-300/400 launch near #Mozyr, Belarus. Visible all across the Gomel region, it seems. What did it just intercept? https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1497957770074763264

North Korea fired what is believed to be a missile into the waters of the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday morning, according to the Japanese government. In response, Fort Greely, Alaska personnel were ordered to find shelter immediately during what was still Tuesday afternoon in Alaska. It’s unknown what kind of projectile it was, but the Japanese Defense Ministry said it was probably a missile. Other MRAK sources said it was a hypersonic missile launched from a submarine. The last missile Pyongyang launched was in October. In 2017, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched in North Korea that had a range...

NASA and its international partners are counting down to a Christmas Day launch of the most expensive science probe ever built, a $10 billion telescope designed to capture starlight from the first galaxies born in the fiery crucible of the Big Bang. Billions over budget and years behind schedule, the James Webb Space Telescope is targeted for blastoff from the European Space Agency's Kourou, French Guiana, launch site at 7:20 a.m. EST Saturday atop an Ariane 5 rocket, weather permitting. Equipped with two solid-fuel strap-on boosters, the workhorse rocket will propel Webb away from the northeast coast of South America...

The James Webb Space Telescope is confirmed for the target launch date of December 24, at 7:20 a.m. EST.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission at 4:04 a.m. EST (0904 GMT) Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. STP-3 was originally supposed to launch on Sunday (Dec. 5), but that plan was nixed after crews discovered a leak in the ground system that stores rocket propellant at Cape Canaveral. Fixing the leak and verifying that all is now well with the system resulted in a 48-hour delay... STP-3...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xcTjosgtfE

Posted on August 20, 2021August 20, 2021 by Matt WilliamsJames Webb’s Upper Stage is off to the Launch SiteIn November (or early December) of this year, after many excruciating delays, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch to space. As the most advanced and complex observatory ever deployed, the James Webb will use its advanced suite of instruments to observe stars, exoplanets, and galaxies in the near and mid-infrared spectrum. In the process, it will address some of the most enduring mysteries about the nature of the Universe.When the time comes, the James Webb will fly aboard an...

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket is scheduled to lift off at 5:56 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Aug. 10, as part of the company’s 16th mission to deliver supplies, equipment and NASA science investigations to the International Space Station, NASA announced. As long as skies are clear, the launch may be visible to people across the Mid-Atlantic region and possibly other parts of the eastern United States... Live coverage of the mission countdown is scheduled to begin at about 1 p.m. Tuesday on the Wallops IBM video site. Launch coverage on NASA TV is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

JIUQUAN, China (AP) — Under bright-blue morning skies, China launched its first crewed space mission in five years Thursday, sending three science-minded military pilots rocketing to a new orbiting station they're expected to reach around midafternoon.

Liftoff is at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT) Designated Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Flight 5 (SBIRS Geo-5), the mission marks ULA's first launch so far this year. However, the company has a busy summer planned, including the launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station. That mission, called OFT-2, will be the spacecraft's second uncrewed orbital flight test. The first, which occurred in Dec. 2019, failed to reach the space station due to a software issue. Following a successful second flight test, Boeing will launch its first crew of astronauts later this year. Weather...

A camera mounted on the Electron's upper stage showed stage separation 2 minutes and 35 seconds into the flight, followed by what appeared to be a brief ignition and a sharp sideways motion before shutting down. Rocket Lab confirmed a loss of telemetry from the rocket four minutes after liftoff. Saturday's launch failure follows a failed launch in July 2020, which the company traced to a single faulty electrical connection. Rocket Lab's first Electron launch in 2017 failed to reach orbit due to a telemetry issue. Aside from those flights, Rocket Lab has seen 18 successful launches. Rocket Lab launched...

The Sunday and Monday launches were postponed due to “upper level winds not being within the limits for a safe launch.” The original launch was planned for last Friday, but has been moved each night due to the weather. The goal of the mission is to study how energy and momentum is transported between regions of space that are connected magnetically. This study will help scientists better understand things like Auroras and how they are formed and their movement from place to place.

SpaceX is targeting Sunday, May 9 for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The instantaneous window is at 2:42 a.m. EDT, or 6:42 UTC, and a backup opportunity is available on Monday, May 10 at 2:21 a.m. EDT, or 6:21 UTC. This will be the tenth flight of the Falcon 9 first stage rocket booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission to the International Space Station, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, SXM-7, and six Starlink missions. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon...