Latest news with #SpaceLaunchDelta45
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida Tech, Patrick Space Force Base partner to offer master's degrees for military personnel
Coming full-circle in a sense, the Florida Institute of Technology will start offering master's degree programs this fall behind the gates at Patrick Space Force Base for military and civilian personnel. "We were founded in the same year as NASA: 1958. And our original mission was to serve as a night school for missilemen, as the Cape Canaveral technicians needed master's degrees in the early days of the Space Race," Florida Tech President John Nicklow said. "Scientists and engineers came together in that year to launch that very important work. The mission soon evolved to encompass military service members. And as Kennedy Space Center grew, and Patrick grew and evolved, so did Florida Tech," Nicklow said. Florida Tech: Virgin Galactic spaceflight chief encourages Florida Tech grads as company builds new rocket plane Nicklow spoke during a June 10 ribbon-cutting ceremony at Patrick's Education and Training Center, where the Melbourne-based university has set up classrooms and support facilities. The four degree programs: Master of Science in acquisition and contract management, Master of Science in space systems, Master of Science in space systems management, and Master of Business Administration. "All incredible things, as you look at Patrick Space Force Base and the unique professionals that we have here, being able to continue their educational experience to further build on their repertoire, their skill set," said U.S. Air Force Col. Christopher Bulson, Space Launch Delta 45 deputy commander. "Whether it's within the Department of Defense, or coming back to the local community when they're done with their service," Bulson said. Nicklow and Bulson plan to expand Florida Tech's offerings in the future, based on need and demand. Student enrollment projections remain in "the discovery phase," they said. Florida Tech's institutional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, is expected to approve the Patrick instructional site this summer. The Melbourne university's faculty members and instructors will commute to the beachside Space Force base and teach eight-week classes in hybrid (in-person and online) fashion. Don Platt, associate professor of space systems and director of Florida Tech's Spaceport Education Center in Titusville, will oversee operations. During a December FLORIDA TODAY interview, Nicklow and Space Force Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba said the university and STARCOM — or Space Training and Readiness Command headquarters — were exploring an educational partnership. STARCOM is in the process of moving from Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs to Patrick, eventually bringing more than 450 military and civilian personnel to Florida's Space Coast. The St. Johns River Water Management District has issued a stormwater management system permit for two future modular buildings for STARCOM personnel on base. Brevard Engineering College — today's Florida Tech — hosted its first classes on Sept. 22, 1958, inside three rented classrooms at Eau Gallie Jr. High School. That building is now West Shore Jr./Sr. High. The university earned the NASA-themed nicknames "Missileman U" and "Countdown College" during its formative years. Five Florida Tech graduates became NASA space shuttle astronauts: Suni Williams, Joan Higginbotham, Kathryn Hire, George Zamka and Frederick Sturckow. Another alumnae, Ann Dunwoody, became America's first female four-star general in the U.S. Army. "I really appreciate the words on the history of the university. It's really amazing to continue that legacy in a different way," Bulson told Nicklow during a tour of Florida Tech's new educational space. "You know, it feels like we're getting back to our roots in some way by doing this. It's a little bit different, but it's who we are," Nicklow replied. For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter. Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@ Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 'Missileman U' Florida Tech to offer degrees at Patrick Space Force Base
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Watch Live: SpaceX lines up Starlink launch while private Axiom Space mission waits out weather
Tuesday morning's weather seems nice enough on the Space Coast, but high winds in a potential abort site forced the human spaceflight plans of Axiom Space and SpaceX to push a planned launch of the Ax-4 mission from Kennedy Space Center to at least Wednesday. The payload of 23 Starlink satellites on another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, though, does not require as much caution, so a launch from neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 is still on targeting liftoff at 9:05 a.m. during a window that runs through 1:02 p.m. Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts a 95% chance for good conditions at the opening of the window, although those chances decline to just 70% by the early afternoon. The first-stage booster for the mission is making its 12th flight and will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. It would be the 49th launch on the Space Coast with all but two coming from SpaceX. If it goes up, launch No. 50 could come Wednesday morning as the Ax-4 mission looks to send up its crew in a new Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 launching from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A at 8 a.m. It's the second flight of the mission's first-stage booster, which would return to Canaveral's Landing Zone 1, meaning a sonic boom could be heard on the Space Coast and parts of Central Florida. SLD 45's weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions at the launch site, but the forecast continues to predict moderate to high winds along the launch corridor that includes areas needed in case of an emergency abort. A backup to Thursday at 7:37 a.m. sees a better weather forecast for those downrange winds expected to have died down some, while chances at the launch site would be 75% for good conditions. The Ax-4 mission is commanded by former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee Peggy Whitson making what would be her fifth trip to space. She is leading three men whose seats were paid for by the governments of India and Hungary, as well as Poland through its membership with the European Space Agency. India's Shubhanshu Shukla is taking the role of pilot while Hungary's Tibor Kapu and Poland's Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski are mission specialists. None of those three countries have had national astronauts fly to space in more than four decades. They plan to dock with the International Space Station one day after launch for about a two-week stay during which the quartet will work on about 60 science investigations representing 31 different countries. More than two dozen of those will be sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory. This would be the third human spaceflight from the Space Coast in 2023 following SpaceX's Crew-10 mission and the private polar orbital Fram2 mission.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
What to know: SpaceX rocket launch from Cape Canaveral set for overnight
SpaceX will try again tonight to launch the Falcon 9 rocket that scrubbed early Monday morning. The new liftoff time is set for 12:42 a.m. Tuesday, June 3. The launch will be from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40. The payload is latest batch of Starlink internet satellites, which is being referred to as Starlink 12-19. SpaceX did not provide an official reason for the early Monday scrub. The 45th Weather Squadron predicted a 65% chance of favorable conditions for tonight's launch attempt. According to Space Launch Delta 45, the rocket will travel on an eastern trajectory upon liftoff. This is a rare occasion as Starlink launches typically fly southeast or northeast. When is the next Florida rocket launch? Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, Axiom, ULA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral No middle-of-the-night sonic booms will be heard on the Space Coast, as the rocket's first stage will land on a SpaceX drone ship stationed out on the Atlantic Ocean. Check back beginning 90 minutes prior to liftoff for live updates on this page. Countdown Timer Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@ or on X: @brookeofstars. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: What to know: SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral to occur overnight
Miami Herald
30-05-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
SpaceX scoops up another national security launch while ULA faces scrutiny
United Launch Alliance's years-long delays with its new Vulcan rocket have flipped the script for national security missions, making SpaceX the new reliable provider. The shift to Elon Musk's company at the detriment to ULA's bottom line is on the pad again Friday with a SpaceX Falcon 9 set to launch the GPS III-7 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 during a window from 1:23-1:38 p.m., with a backup date on Saturday from 1:18-1:34 p.m. Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts only a 45% chance for good conditions Friday, which only improves to 50% on Saturday. The mission to launch a GPS satellite is the second that was originally awarded to ULA but transferred to SpaceX under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract. Originally assigned to ULA's Vulcan, both a December 2024 launch and now this one were shifted to Falcon 9 as ULA faced an extended delay in certification of its replacement for both its Atlas V and Delta IV class of rockets. While called the GPS III-7 mission, it's actually flying the eighth of 10 satellites constructed by Lockheed Martin to add to the U.S.'s GPS capability in space. It's also part of an accelerated mission timeline laid out by the Space Force for national security missions in which payloads get to space in under three months from the decision to go, compared to the normal turnaround that can take up to 24 months. "It highlights another instance of the Space Force's ability to complete high priority launches on a rapid timescale, which demonstrates the capability to respond to emergent constellation needs as rapidly as space vehicle readiness allows," said Space Force Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader of launch execution with the Assured Access to Space program. The latest GPS satellites are three times more accurate and eight times more resistant to jamming than the other 38 in space already, according to the Space Force. The Department of Defense's desire to launch more effective GPS hardware, less susceptible to interference, forced the switch to SpaceX in both missions. The NSSL Phase 2 contract, which featured five years' worth of task orders announced from 2020-2024, was originally announced to give ULA 60% of the assignments. All of those were supposed to fly on Vulcan, with its first launches to be completed by summer 2022. But as Vulcan faced myriad delays, the final spate of task orders ended up putting 26 missions on ULA's plate to SpaceX's 22. Now another two of those missions have swapped from ULA to SpaceX, although the Space Force has said ULA will get back two future missions previously assigned to SpaceX. To date, ULA has only managed to fly one of those 26 missions, and that wasn't on a Vulcan. Instead ULA was forced to use one of its few remaining Atlas V rockets, which flew last summer. ULA, which is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that formed in 2006, had originally been targeting mid-2020 for Vulcan's debut. But it faced hurdles from COVID, acquisition of engines from supplier Blue Origin, delays from customer payloads and even a fiery test stand incident that all contributed to a nearly four-year slide. It flew for the first time in January 2024, but not again until that October, both as part of ULA's efforts to get national security certification. An issue with a solid rocket booster motor detaching during launch on the second flight, though, delayed that certification until March 2025. At this point, the first national security launch on Vulcan won't be until at least July, according to Major Gen. Stephen G. Purdy, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. Purdy, a former head of Space Launch Delta 45 based at Patrick Space Force Base, raised concerns about ULA's delays during written testimony released earlier this month to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. "In NSSL Phase 2, the ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year," he wrote. "Major issues with the Vulcan have overshadowed its successful certification resulting in delays to the launch of four national security missions. Despite the retirement of highly successful Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, the transition to Vulcan has been slow and continues to impact the completion of Space Force mission objectives." Vulcan's certification is at the point only partial, having only been signed off for five of the Space Force's nine required orbital needs, Purdy said. He did said ULA has increased its "engineering resources and management focus to resolve design issues" while government personnel have been more involved with both technical and program management. Purdy said ULA's first national security launch on Vulcan will be USSF-106. The payload, Navigation Technology Satellite-3, is headed to geostationary orbit. Built by L3Harris, it's funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and a potential replacement technology for GPS. It was one of two task orders given to ULA in 2020 with a value of $337 million. The other, USSF-51, was the one that launched last summer on an Atlas V. With ULA dealing with a backlog of the Phase 2 contract missions, the company's piece of the next pie got smaller. Earlier this year, the Space Force announced SpaceX, not ULA, would get the majority of the Phase 3 contracts with a total of $13.7 billion to be doled out over the next five years. SpaceX would receive 28 of 54 planned missions, or 52%. Meanwhile, ULA's take is only 19 missions, or 35%, while newcomer Blue Origin would get seven, or 13%. Purdy confirmed ULA had already lost out on some Phase 3 contracts because of the Vulcan delays, and addressed what he deemed to be ULA's marching orders along with other commercial providers that have fallen short on delivery to the government. "For these programs, the prime contractors must re-establish baselines, establish a culture of accountability, and repair trust deficit to prove to (me) that they are adopting the acquisition principles necessary to deliver capabilities at speed, on cost and on schedule," he said. ULA meanwhile is dipping its toes back into launches, lining up only its second planned mission of the year, a commercial launch for customer Amazon using another of its remaining Atlas V rockets. Following the April launch of the first mission for Amazon's Project Kuiper, an internet satellite constellation that aims to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system, the second mission is targeting liftoff no earlier than June 13. Meanwhile, SpaceX has already flown its Falcon 9 on 64 missions this year, including 43 from the Space Coast. ------------- Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SpaceX scoops up another national security launch while ULA faces scrutiny
United Launch Alliance's years-long delays with its new Vulcan rocket have flipped the script for national security missions, making SpaceX the new reliable provider. The shift to Elon Musk's company at the detriment to ULA's bottom line is on the pad again Friday with a SpaceX Falcon 9 set to launch the GPS III-7 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 during a window from 1:23-1:38 p.m., with a backup date on Saturday from 1:18-1:34 p.m. Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts only a 45% chance for good conditions Friday, which only improves to 50% on Saturday. The mission to launch a GPS satellite is the second that was originally awarded to ULA but transferred to SpaceX under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract. Originally assigned to ULA's Vulcan, both a December 2024 launch and now this one were shifted to Falcon 9 as ULA faced an extended delay in certification of its replacement for both its Atlas V and Delta IV class of rockets. While called the GPS III-7 mission, it's actually flying the eighth of 10 satellites constructed by Lockheed Martin to add to the U.S.'s GPS capability in space. It's also part of an accelerated mission timeline laid out by the Space Force for national security missions in which payloads get to space in under three months from the decision to go, compared to the normal turnaround that can take up to 24 months. 'It highlights another instance of the Space Force's ability to complete high priority launches on a rapid timescale, which demonstrates the capability to respond to emergent constellation needs as rapidly as space vehicle readiness allows,' said Space Force Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader of launch execution with the Assured Access to Space program. The latest GPS satellites are three times more accurate and eight times more resistant to jamming than the other 38 in space already, according to the Space Force. The Department of Defense's desire to launch more effective GPS hardware, less susceptible to interference, forced the switch to SpaceX in both missions. The NSSL Phase 2 contract, which featured five years' worth of task orders announced from 2020-2024, was originally announced to give ULA 60% of the assignments. All of those were supposed to fly on Vulcan, with its first launches to be completed by summer 2022. Northrop Grumman doubles down on new rocket investment with Firefly Astronomers discover strange new celestial object in our Milky Way galaxy SpaceX gets back to work with Falcon 9 launch from KSC Space Coast launch schedule Get ready for several years of killer heat, top weather forecasters warn But as Vulcan faced myriad delays, the final spate of task orders ended up putting 26 missions on ULA's plate to SpaceX's 22. Now another two of those missions have swapped from ULA to SpaceX, although the Space Force has said ULA will get back two future missions previously assigned to SpaceX. To date, ULA has only managed to fly one of those 26 missions, and that wasn't on a Vulcan. Instead ULA was forced to use one of its few remaining Atlas V rockets, which flew last summer. ULA, which is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that formed in 2006, had originally been targeting mid-2020 for Vulcan's debut. But it faced hurdles from COVID, acquisition of engines from supplier Blue Origin, delays from customer payloads and even a fiery test stand incident that all contributed to a nearly four-year slide. It flew for the first time in January 2024, but not again until that October, both as part of ULA's efforts to get national security certification. An issue with a solid rocket booster motor detaching during launch on the second flight, though, delayed that certification until March 2025. At this point, the first national security launch on Vulcan won't be until at least July, according to Major Gen. Stephen G. Purdy, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. Purdy, a former head of Space Launch Delta 45 based at Patrick Space Force Base, raised concerns about ULA's delays during written testimony released earlier this month to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. 'In NSSL Phase 2, the ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year,' he wrote. 'Major issues with the Vulcan have overshadowed its successful certification resulting in delays to the launch of four national security missions. Despite the retirement of highly successful Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, the transition to Vulcan has been slow and continues to impact the completion of Space Force mission objectives.' Vulcan's certification is at the point only partial, having only been signed off for five of the Space Force's nine required orbital needs, Purdy said. He did said ULA has increased its 'engineering resources and management focus to resolve design issues' while government personnel have been more involved with both technical and program management. Purdy said ULA's first national security launch on Vulcan will be USSF-106. The payload, Navigation Technology Satellite-3, is headed to geostationary orbit. Built by L3Harris, it's funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and a potential replacement technology for GPS. It was one of two task orders given to ULA in 2020 with a value of $337 million. The other, USSF-51, was the one that launched last summer on an Atlas V. With ULA dealing with a backlog of the Phase 2 contract missions, the company's piece of the next pie got smaller. Earlier this year, the Space Force announced SpaceX, not ULA, would get the majority of the Phase 3 contracts with a total of $13.7 billion to be doled out over the next five years. SpaceX would receive 28 of 54 planned missions, or 52%. Meanwhile, ULA's take is only 19 missions, or 35%, while newcomer Blue Origin would get seven, or 13%. Purdy confirmed ULA had already lost out on some Phase 3 contracts because of the Vulcan delays, and addressed what he deemed to be ULA's marching orders along with other commercial providers that have fallen short on delivery to the government. 'For these programs, the prime contractors must re-establish baselines, establish a culture of accountability, and repair trust deficit to prove to (me) that they are adopting the acquisition principles necessary to deliver capabilities at speed, on cost and on schedule,' he said ULA meanwhile is dipping its toes back into launches, lining up only its second planned mission of the year, a commercial launch for customer Amazon using another of its remaining Atlas V rockets. Following the April launch of the first mission for Amazon's Project Kuiper, an internet satellite constellation that aims to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system, the second mission is targeting liftoff no earlier than June 13. Meanwhile, SpaceX has already flown its Falcon 9 on 64 missions this year, including 43 from the Space Coast.
