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The Falcon 9 first stage completed its burn and has successfully landed on the SpaceX drone ship affectionately called, “Of Course I Still Love You,” which waited for it in the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the second stage’s first burn is complete and the vehicle has started a 32-minute coast phase. The payload fairing separated from the …

Liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s TESS spacecraft on a mission to help search for planets outside our solar system that could be capable of harboring life. The Falcon 9’s nine Merlin engines are generating more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust – providing the initial boost TESS needs to break the …

NASA’s TESS spacecraft is already running on internal power and the rocket will transition to internal power in the next few minutes. There are several other significant milestones coming up between now and launch — the rocket’s engines will be chilled and its onboard propellant tanks pressurized, and the gantry-like strongback structure will be retracted …

Weather is expected to cooperate with NASA’s and SpaceX’s launch plans this evening. According to the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, there is less than a 10 percent chance of conditions violating launch rules, meaning the weather is 90 percent “go” for launch. Launch-watchers gathered at viewing areas across Florida’s Space Coast are being …

Countdown clocks are ticking at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida as NASA’s next planet-hunting spacecraft awaits liftoff aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 6:51 p.m. EDT. The launch window extends for 30 seconds. When a planet crosses in front of the star it’s orbiting, that event is called a transit – and the …

Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s TESS spacecraft remains scheduled for 6:51 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Follow the countdown here and on www.nasa.gov/live starting at 6:30 p.m. TESS is sealed inside the protective payload fairing atop its ride into space: the two-stage …

Ku Control Unit (KCU) Software Transition: Following yesterday’s swap to KCU2, running the new R4 software, the KCU2 modem card stopped processing Ku forward commands. An eventual power cycle of the entire KCU2 unit recovered KCU2 forward link. Later the KCU2 modem card once again stopped processing Ku forward commands. Ku was transitioned back to …

Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s TESS spacecraft remains scheduled for 6:51 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. If you’re in the Space Coast area – that’s the east coast of central Florida, about 45 minutes from Orlando – and you’re interested in seeing …

A docked Russian cargo craft automatically fired its engines this morning boosting the International Space Station’s altitude a little higher. During the rest of the day, the Expedition 55 crew supported life science and swapped out station hardware. Russia’s Progress 69 resupply ship docked to the Zvezda service module fired its thrusters boosting the station’s …

NASA and SpaceX are targeting the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for no earlier than 6:51 p.m. EDT. Frequent updates from the countdown will begin here at 6:30 p.m. You can also watch at http://www.nasa.gov/live. TESS …