JPSS is a collaborative program between NOAA and NASA. JPSS-2 is one of five satellites that will comprise the JPSS constellation. These spacecraft gather global measurements of atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic conditions, including sea and land surface temperatures, vegetation, clouds, rainfall, snow and ice cover, fire locations and smoke plumes, atmospheric temperature, water vapor and ozone. LOFTID is a tech demo for the inflatable heatshield technology. It will attempt to survive a reentry from orbit after JPSS 2 is separated. This test will validate the technology for various applications, such as landing large payloads on Mars and engine reuse on ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
An Atlas V with a 4 meter diameter fairing, no boosters and a single centaur upper stage engine.
See DetailsUnited Launch Alliance (ULA) is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. ULA was formed in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. ULA launches from both coasts of the US. They launch their Atlas V vehicle from LC-41 in Cape Canaveral and LC-3E at Vandeberg. Their Delta IV launches from LC-37 at Cape Canaveral and LC-6 at Vandenberg.
INFO WIKIA NASA demonstration of an inflatable heat shield showed the technology worked and can be scaled up for missions on Earth and Mars, project leaders said Nov. 17.
NASA will host a media briefing on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. EST to share early results from the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) technology demonstration.
A weather satellite is in good condition after suffering a problem deploying its solar array immediately after launch Nov. 10.
NASA successfully launched the third in a series of polar-orbiting weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at 1:49 a.m. PST Thursday, as well as an agency technology demonstration on a United Launc…
An Atlas 5 successfully launched a polar-orbiting weather satellite and a reentry technology demonstrator on the final flight of the vehicle from California.
China's geostationary meteorological satellite program FY-4 (Feng Yun 4) is the second generation of chinese geostationary meteorological satellites.
A batch of 9 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group.…
Note: Assignment of payloads to this launch is uncertain. The Russian Obzor-R satellite is a planned X-band radar earth observation satellite desi…
AST SpaceMobile’s Block 2 BlueBird satellites are designed to deliver up to 10 times the bandwidth capacity of the BlueBird Block 1 satellites, requi…
First test launch of CASC/SAST’s Long March 12A rocket, with a dummy payload. The rocket’s 1st stage attempted to land on a landing pad about 300 km …
Maiden orbital launch attempt for the South Korean start-up Innospace and its HANBIT-Nano small launch vehicle. Onboard this flight are five small sa…
QZSS (Quasi Zenith Satellite System) is a Japanese satellite navigation system operating from inclined, elliptical geosynchronous orbits to achieve o…
Synthetic aperture radar Earth observation satellite for Japanese Earth imaging company iQPS.
NS-37 is the 16th crewed flight for the New Shepard program and the 37th in the New Shepard program's history.
Chinese classified satellite claimed to be for communication technology test purposes. Actual mission not known.