Orbital Sciences Corp

Launch controllers loaded the wrong computer program into the guidance unit of a rocket that had to be destroyed last week when it veered sharply off course, a Pentagon official said Monday. No one bothered to check printouts that showed the error, said Michael Griffin, deputy for technology at the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. The 29-foot Aries rocket was blown up Tuesday 23 seconds after being launched with "Star Wars" experiments from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The U.S. Defense Department plans to open more than a dozen rocket launches to competition, moving to end a monopoly held by a Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. joint venture. The Air Force is authorized to buy as many as 14 booster cores over the next five years from potential competitors such as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the Hawthorne company known as SpaceX and headed by billionaire Elon Musk, and Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., wrote Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, in a Nov. 27 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

About 563 miles west of Baja California, SpaceX's Dragon space capsule successfully splashed down after spending nine days in outer space. When the unmanned cone-shaped capsule hit the water at 8:42 a.m. Pacific time Thursday, it marked the end of a historic mission carried out by the Hawthorne company officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. It was the first privately built and operated spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. "Welcome home, baby," said Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and chief executive, in a news briefing from company headquarters.

After spending more than three weeks docked with the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon space capsule is ready to return to Earth and splash down Tuesday in the Pacific Ocean. NASA Television will provide coverage of Dragon's departure beginning at 1 a.m. Pacific time, although the release of the spacecraft isn't expected until 4:06 a.m. The Dragon capsule will return with about 2,668 pounds of science samples from human research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities for NASA, the space agency said . Dragon is slated to splash down around 9:36 a.m. in the Pacific Ocean about 300 miles west of Baja California.

Less than 250 miles west of Baja California, SpaceX's Dragon capsule successfully splashed down Tuesday after spending more than three weeks in outer space on a NASA mission. When the cone-shaped unmanned capsule hit the water at 9:34 a.m. PDT, it marked the end of the mission carried out by the Hawthorne company, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. PHOTOS: A 'new era': Private-sector space mission The privately built and operated spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on March 3 after being launched two days prior.

A rocket, standing more than nine stories tall, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base but failed to lift a NASA Earth-observation satellite into orbit and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean. The failed mission cost $424 million, the space agency said. It is the second consecutive time that NASA has encountered the problem with the Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. NASA scientists believe the launch on Friday failed because the satellite's protective cover, which opens like a clamshell, did not separate as expected.

Lockheed Corp. plans to invest at least $150 million in a satellite-based Earth image service it expects to launch in 1997 with the help of outside partners, Chairman Daniel M. Tellep said Tuesday.

Engineers managed to shift a wayward private communications satellite out of harm's way Friday, at least temporarily, and an aerospace company offered equipment for a possible salvage mission by a space shuttle. Engineers were able to send the Intelsat 6 satellite to a higher orbit, where it won't be subject to Earth's atmosphere. The satellite failed to separate from its launching vehicle, a commercial Titan 3 rocket, after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Shattering hopes for the first successful flight of a hypersonic aircraft, a 12-foot experimental plane equipped with a special jet engine was destroyed Saturday after its booster veered out of control and began to fall apart. NASA ground controllers ordered the plane destroyed 51 seconds after it was launched from a B-52 flying over the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles west of Los Angeles.

A group led by ITT Corp. on Monday announced plans for a $33-million commercial-satellite "spaceport" at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in an effort to capture part of the booming launch business that is now concentrated in South America, China and Russia. The spaceport would specialize in preparing and aiding the launches of small- to medium-size payloads of up to 5,000 pounds and, if successful, would be the only major site for commercial satellite launches in the United States.