Lockheed Martin Orion spacecraft EFT-1 imminent

As we move closer to the highly anticipated first ever test flight of the Orion spacecraft, there's an aerospace company which would be keeping its fingers tightly crossed during this nail-biting moment for the U.S. spaceflight.

Lockheed Martin which built the manned capsule that will take American astronauts far beyond Earth, is much more than excited about the milestone flight.

"We live for this kind of project. We will tell our kids and our grandkids about this," Allison Rakes, Lockheed Martin spokesperson told reporters.

The company's hard working crew literally lives for this first step of future deep space exploration.

"We've had a team in Florida working around the clock for the past several months preparing for this moment. Once that Delta IV lifts off, you're going to see quite the celebration," Rakes added.

Orbital Sciences: First launch of Antares rocket imminent

Image provided by NASA shows Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

Orbital Sciences, one of two private US firms chosen by NASA to shuttle cargo to the International Space Station, is preparing for the first launch of its Antares rocket today (Wed 17th April 2013).

The launch over the Atlantic ocean is scheduled for 5 pm (2100 GMT) from the Wallops flight facility from an island off the coast of Virginia about 270 kilometers from Washington.

The two-stage launch vehicle, 131 feet (40 meters) tall and 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) in diameter, aims to hit an orbit of 155 miles (250 kilometers) some ten minutes after take-off. Weather forecasts give a 45 percent change of favorable conditions.

As this is a test mission, Antares will not be transporting the company's Cygnus capsule but will instead carry a simulation of an equivalent payload.

If the launch is a success, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences plans a demonstration run to the space station with the Cygnus capsule in three months, followed by its first delivery mission before the end of the year.

Mike Pinkston

"We see this as a key milestone in proving what can be done in an industry-government partnership," Mike Pinkston, the program manager for Antares at Orbital Sciences, said in a conference call Tuesday.

NASA, in offering its expertise and equipment to partners in the private sector, aims to achieve "safe, reliable and cost-effective access to space and to low orbit and to the ISS in particular," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program.

Alan Lindenmoyer

"We also recognize the need to create a market environment that will sustain these capabilities, and the ISS provides a perfect market for this new capability with reliable and predictable needs."

The $1.9 billion contract requires Orbital Sciences to deliver freight to the ISS over the course of eight flights by the beginning of 2016. Cygnus has a capacity of two tons.

Unlike the SpaceX Dragon capsule  but similar to the ESA ATV and Japan's HTV, Cygnus cannot return to Earth and will be destroyed upon re-entry, after its mission is complete.

Launch of WISE Satellite is imminent: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

WISE is shown inside one-half of the nose cone, or fairing, that will protect it during launch. The spacecraft is clamped to the top of the rocket above the white conical fitting.


The fairing will split open like a clamshell about five minutes after launch. Credit: United Launch Alliance/ JPL-Caltech/JPL-Caltech

The launch of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, aboard a Delta II rocket is scheduled to occur between 9:09 a.m. and 9:23 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Dec. 9, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA will provide television and Internet coverage of prelaunch activities and launch.

After launch, WISE will scan the entire sky in infrared light with a sensitivity hundreds of times greater than ever before, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images.

The mission will uncover objects never seen before, including the coolest stars, the universe's most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets.

Airbus A400M Military transport plane test flight imminent

Airbus' long-delayed A400M military transport will make its first test flight during the week beginning December 7, "weather permitting", the European planemaker said Friday.

The A400M was to replace ageing military cargo carriers in several European air forces but its development has been dogged by a series of serious technical problems and its in service date has been pushed from 2009 to 2013.

Some governments have begun to tire of waiting for Airbus to resolve the issues, and French and German officials have given the firm until the end of the year to prove that the project remains viable.

"Ground tests of the first A400M are progressing satisfactorily at our facility. This allows us to anticipate a first flight in the week 50, weather permitting," said Airbus military chairman and managing director Domingo Urena.

When the 20-billion-euro (28-billion-dollar) A400M project began it was hoped that a first test flight would be held in 2008 and that air forces would have had the airframe in service by the end of this year.

There is now little hope that the first production models will be delivered by 2012 and none is expected on the world's battlefield airstrips until 2013.

The delays have cost millions and forced Airbus to renegotiate its contracts with several customers. South Africa has dropped its order entirely and Britain has mulled switching is business to US manufacturers.

Seven European countries -- Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey -- have ordered 180 planes between them, in most cases to replace ageing Transall and C130 Hercules transports.