Space News & Blog Articles

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for launch tonight on another mission to deliver satellites into orbit for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is planned for 6:39 p.m. EDT (2239 UTC).

It’s shaping up to be a busy night for SpaceX teams on the Florida Space Coast. Early Friday morning, at pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, they rolled out the Falcon Heavy rocket for NASA’s Psyche launch, now planned for Oct. 12. They plan to test fire its 27 first stage engines this evening, possibly while they are also counting down to the Falcon 9 launch. Spaceflight Now will bring you live coverage from both launch pads.

File photo a a Falcon 9 prior to a Starlink satellite delivery mission. Image: SpaceX.

Stormy weather is forecast for Central Florida today and the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral is predicting only a 40-percent chance of acceptable conditions for the Falcon 9 launch Friday evening. If necessary there are three additional launch opportunities on Friday at 7:34 p.m. EDT (2334 UTC), 10 p.m. EDT (0200 UTC) and 10:15 p.m. EDT (0215 UTC).

If the weather cooperates, the Falcon 9 will liftoff from pad 40 and target a trajectory that will take it south-east. Following stage separation, about two and half minutes into flight, booster 1069, which is making its tenth flight, will arc towards a landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” which will be stationed about 420 miles (675 km) downrange in the Atlantic east of the Bahamas.

It will be SpaceX’s 43rd Starlink delivery mission of the year. If all goes according to plan, 22 of the so-called V2 Mini satellites, will be released into orbit an hour and five minutes after liftoff.

Artist’s illustration of the Psyche spacecraft and its destination. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission is being delayed a week due to an issue with the spacecraft, according to multiple sources. Liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is now scheduled for no earlier than Oct. 12.

The billion-dollar mission had been scheduled to liftoff at the opening of a 20-day launch window on Oct. 5. The probe is already running more than a year behind schedule due to software problems.

Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is now scheduled for 10:16 a.m. EDT (1416 UTC) on Oct. 12. The Falcon Heavy rocket that will launch the probe is expected to rollout of its hangar soon for a static test firing of its 27 Merlin booster engines that was scheduled no earlier than Friday. As usual, for a mission of this type, the engine test will take place without the payload attached.

NASA did not immediately responded to questions about the spacecraft issue or provide confirmation of the delay. We will update this story when we receive additional information.

Technicians connect NASA’s Psyche spacecraft to the payload attach fitting inside the clean room at the Astrotech satellite processing facility in Titusville, Florida on Sept. 20, 2023. Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett.

The space agency’s last official update on the mission came in a blog post on Sept. 22 when it reported that fueling and testing of the spacecraft were complete. Psyche had been connected to a payload attach fitting for the Falcon Heavy on Sept. 20 at a satellite processing facility near the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida, in readiness for encapsulation inside the rocket’s nose cone.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft descends under its parachute in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth early Wednesday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an unexpected yearlong stay in space, the longest single flight in U.S. space history.

With Soyuz MS-69/23S commander Sergey Prokopyev monitoring cockpit displays, flanked on the left by co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and on the right by NASA flight engineer Frank Rubio, the Russian ferry ship undocked from the space station’s multi-port Prichal module at 3:54 a.m. EDT.

After backing a safe distance away from the lab and waiting to reach the precise point in space to begin the descent, the spacecraft fired its braking rockets for four minutes and 39 seconds starting at 6:24 a.m., slowing the ship’s 17,100-mph velocity by about 286 mph.

That was just enough to drop the far side of the orbit deep into the atmosphere, putting the ship on course for the targeted landing site.

After separating from the upper orbital compartment and lower propulsion and power module, the central crew compartment, the only one protected by a heat shield, hit the top of the discernible atmosphere, 62 miles up, at 6:55 a.m. and landed near the town of Dzhezkazgan at 7:17 a.m. (5:17 p.m. local time).

Mission Status Center

Proving a quick turnaround capability for the U.S. Space Force’s Space System Command’s Space Safari Program Office, the Victus Nox mission launches using a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket. Image: Firefly Aerospace

Nearly two weeks after the successful launch of a payload for the U.S. Space Force’s Space System Command, leaders from the branch along with launch provider, Firefly Aerospace, and satellite manufacturer, Millennium Space Systems, touted the importance and details of the mission during a press briefing on Tuesday.

Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough, the materiel leader for the SSC’s Space Safari Program Office (an acquisition program office supporting USSPACECOM), said the Victus Nox mission was an important step forward in establishing what they term “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) missions.

“The overarching purpose of this mission was to demonstrate our ability to rapidly… deter and, if necessary, respond to adversary threats in the space domain,” Birchenough said.

The Sept. 14 launch of the Victus Nox spacecraft on a Firefly Alpha rocket was the company’s third launch to date and demonstrated a record turnaround time for a mission from end-to-end.

As images of Firefly’s Alpha rocket soaring through the night sky were captured across the southwest United States, a team of passionate Fireflies flawlessly executed a mission that has never been done before — launching after a 24-hour notice.

The returning Soyuz MS-23/69S crew (clockwise from upper left): NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, flight engineer Dmitri Petelin and commander Sergey Prokopyev. Image: NASA.

Outgoing space station commander Sergei Prokopyev and his two Soyuz crewmates, co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, packed up Tuesday for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Wednesday to close out a yearlong stay in orbit, the longest flight in U.S. space history.

When the trio launched in September 2022, they expected to spend six months aboard the International Space Station, the normal tour of duty for a long-duration crew.

But a coolant leak disabled their Soyuz MS-22/68S ferry ship last December, prompting the Russians to launch a replacement — Soyuz MS-23/69S — last February. That meant Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio had to stay aloft an additional six months to put the Russian crew-rotation schedule back on track.

If all goes well, they will finally head for home Wednesday, undocking from the space station at 3:54 a.m. EDT and landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 7:17 a.m. EDT (5:17 p.m. local time).

During a brief change-of-command ceremony Tuesday, ISS Expedition 69 commander Prokopyev turned the lab over to European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, presenting him with a symbolic key to the laboratory.

SpaceX is planning its 42nd Starlink delivery mission of the year with a Falcon 9 scheduled to launch from the West Coast carrying a batch of 21 satellites at 1:48 a.m. PDT (4:48 a.m. EDT / 0848 UTC) Monday morning.

We’ll bring you live coverage of the Starlink launch in our Launch Pad Live stream.

The Falcon 9 will head in a south-easterly direction after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California targeting a 185×178 mile (297×286 km) orbit, inclined at 53 degrees to the equator.

The first stage booster, making its sixth flight, previously launched the first Tranche 0 mission for the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency and flew four previous Starlink delivery missions. After completing its burn, the first stage will land on the drone ship ‘Of Course I still Love You’ stationed about 400 miles downrange (644km) in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

File photo of a SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: SpaceX

If all goes according to plan, deployment of the 21 V2 Mini Starlink satellites will occur just over an hour after launch. The V2 Mini model was introduced earlier this year and is much larger than the V1.5 satellites. Equipped with upgraded antennae and larger solar panels, the latest models can deliver four times the bandwidth of the previous satellites.

From left to right, NASA Sample Return Capsule Science Lead Scott Sandford, NASA Astromaterials Curator Francis McCubbin, and University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta, examined the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule after it landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023. Image: NASA/Keegan Barber.

A saucer-shaped capsule carrying asteroid fragments that may hold clues about the birth of the solar system slammed into Earth’s atmosphere Sunday and descended to an on-target parachute-assisted touchdown in Utah in the final chapter of a dramatic seven-year, four-billion-mile voyage.

Released from the OSIRIS-REx mothership four hours earlier, the 110-pound 31-inch-wide sample return capsule, loaded with a half-pound of rocks and soil collected in 2020 from an asteroid known as Bennu, hit the top of the discernible atmosphere, 82 miles up, at a blistering 27,000 mph 10:42 a.m. EDT.

Over the next two minutes, rapidly decelerating in a hellish blaze of atmospheric friction, the capsule’s heat shield endured re-entry temperatures of more than 5,000 degrees and a braking force 32 times the force of gravity as it streaked toward landing at the Utah Test and Training Range west of Salt Lake City.

With scientists and engineers holding their collective breath — a similar capsule crash landed in Utah in 2004 when its parachutes failed to open — the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule survived its trial by fire and presumably deployed a stabilizing drogue parachute at an altitude of 20 miles.

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission pictured on the desert floor, shortly after touching down. Its red and white striped parachute rests near by. Image: NASA/Keegan Barber.

The capsule’s 24-foot-wide main capsule was expected to unfurl and inflate at an altitude of 5,000 feet, but NASA said it actually deployed at 20,000 feet. That may have contributed to a slightly earlier-than-expected touchdown, but in any case, the main chute appeared to lower the sample return capsule to an expected 11-mph landing at 10:52 a.m. EDT, the final step in a nail-biting descent.

Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith speaks with some of the key figures at Lockheed Martin, who helped bring the OSIRIS-REx mission to life and will continue working with both the spacecraft and the asteroid samples after the return capsule lands in the Utah desert.

Live coverage as a capsule lands in the U.S. Army test range in the Utah desert carrying samples from the surface of asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx (short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) has been on a seven-year journey to Bennu and back. If all goes according to plan the capsule will land under a parachute at about 10:55 a.m. EDT (1455 UTC) on Sunday.

Mission Status Center

Spaceflight Now will provide live coverage of the Starlink 6-18 launch from Cape Canaveral, with commentary, starting about an hour before launch.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Saturday night with a booster making its 17th flight. It will be only the second to reach this milestone and the 200th time SpaceX has launched a previously flown Falcon 9 first stage. Liftoff, with 22 Starlink satellites inside its payload fairing, is scheduled for 9:07 p.m. EDT (0107 UTC Sunday).

The first stage for this Starlink 6-18 mission, is booster 1060, which first flew in June 2020 carrying the GPS 3-3 satellite for the U.S. Space Force and went on to fly the Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34 and Transporter-6 mission, plus 11 Starlink delivery flights.

Just four days ago, booster 1058 became the first Falcon 9 first stage to make a 17th flight on the Starlink 6-17 mission. SpaceX had previously identified B1060 as the first stage for that mission but corrected the error on its website after the launch.

SpaceX recently re-certified its Falcon 9 first-stage fleet for 20 reuses, five more than the previous rating.

 

Taken on Oct. 27, this image shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully placing its sample collector head into the Sample Return Capsule (SRC). The sequence begins with the collector head hovering over the SRC after the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) arm and moving it into the proper position for capture. At the end of the sequence, the collector head is secured onto the capture ring in the SRC. A few particles can also be seen escaping from the capsule. Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin

For the first time in its agency’s history, NASA is bringing home a sample of an asteroid. The nearly eight-ounce sample from carbon-rich asteroid Bennu is set to land in the desert of the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) on Sunday, Sept. 24.

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft launched back in Sept. 15, 2016 and collected a sample from Bennu on Oct. 20, 2020.

It began making its way back towards Earth over the last couple of years. After making it’s final trajectory maneuver on Sept. 17, OSIRIS-REx is just about ready to release its precious cargo.

Following sample release, the spacecraft will adjust its course and get renamed “OSIRIS-APEX” as it journeys off to observe another asteroid: 99942 Apophis.

Ahead of launching the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than November 2024, the four astronauts donned test flight suits to go through a pre-launch simulation. They rode to launch pad 39B in Canoo electric vehicles and climbed the Mobile Launcher tower.

The launch day demonstration was the first in a series of seven milestones that will be conducted in coordination with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen depart crew quarters at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building for the journey to the launch pad in Canoo electric crew transportation vehicles. Image: NASA.

Frank Rubio inside the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module. Image: NASA.

If NASA had asked astronaut Frank Rubio, well in advance, if he would like to spend a full year aboard the International Space Station, he likely would have turned it down. But that’s how it turned out anyway, when trouble with his crew’s Soyuz ferry ship forced them to extended a six-month stay to 12.

“If they had asked me up front before training, because you do train for a year or two years for your mission, I probably would have declined,” Rubio told reporters Tuesday, eight days before he and his two Soyuz crewmates plan to return to Earth on Sept. 27. “It would have hurt, but I would have declined.

“And that’s only because of family, things that were going on this past year,” he said of his wife and four children. “Had I known that I would have had to miss those very important events, I just would have had to say thank you, but no thank you.”

But once training began for what was supposed to be a six-month flight he was committed, and he took the mission extension in stride “because ultimately that’s our job.”

“We have to get the mission done,” he said. “Having the International Space Station (permanently occupied) for 23 years requires a lot of individual and family sacrifices. But sometimes that’s what you have to do.”

SpaceX will push the boundaries of booster reusability Tuesday night with the scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 using a first stage rocket making its 17th flight. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral with 22 satellites for the Starlink internet network is scheduled for 10:47 p.m. EDT (0247 UTC).

Booster serial number 1060 will be making a record-breaking 17th flight for the Starlink 6-17 mission. Earlier this year SpaceX certified its fleet of Falcon 9 first-stage boosters for up to 20 flights.

The Falcon 9 stands ready for launch Tuesday carrying 22 Starlink satellites. The rocket’s first stage will be making its 17th flight. Image: Spaceflight Now.

The booster first flew in June 2020 carrying the GPS 3-3 satellite for the U.S. Space Force and went on to fly the Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34 and Transporter-6 mission, plus 11 Starlink delivery flights.

Space Force meteorologists are keeping a close watch as a weather front stalls just south of Florida’s space coast and a storm is brewing off shore in the Atlantic. In a forecast issued on Monday, they predicted a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather for launch. The main concern being a violation of the cumulus cloud rule. With the development of the costal storm, conditions deteriorate if the launch slips a day, with only a 30 percent chance of acceptable weather.

It will be the 20th launch of the so-called V2 mini Starlink satellites which are larger and have four times the bandwidth of the previous versions. The full-sized V2 Starlink satellites are due to be launched by SpaceX’s fully-reusable Starship vehicle, but the delayed debut of Starship led the company to create a condensed version of the satellites so they could be launched on Falcon 9.

A shower of sparks at the point the Electron rocket’s second stage engine was supposed to ignite. Image: Rocket Lab.

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket, carrying a radar-imaging satellite for Capella Space, failed on Tuesday after a problem occurred two and half minutes into flight. It was the fourth failure in 41 flights for the small satellite launcher.

The 59-foot-tall (18-meter) rocket lifted off from pad B at Rocket Lab’s privately-operated spaceport on the North Island of New Zealand at 2:55 a.m. EDT (6:55 p.m. NZST / 0655 UTC), a little later than planned due to high levels of solar activity.

Launch controllers reported all was going well as nine Ruthford engines burning kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants propelled the vehicle to an altitude of 43.5 miles (70 km), before burning out two and a half minutes after liftoff.

The first and second stages separated with the aid of pneumatic pushers but, as the single Rutherford vacuum engine of the second stage was supposed to ignite, a brief glow was seen, followed by a spray of orange sparks, and then video from cameras aboard the rocket froze. An on-screen gauge showed the vehicle was losing velocity.

“All stations. We have experienced an anomaly,” a launch controller announced about 30 seconds later. “Please remain on station and we will investigate and action the anomaly plan.”

Artist’s impression of Capella’s Acadia radar-imaging satellite. Image: Capella.

Rocket Lab is gearing up to launch the second of four next-generation radar-imaging satellites for Capella Space atop an Electron rocket from New Zealand at 6:30 p.m. NZST (2:30 a.m. EDT / 0630 UTC) on Tuesday.

After lifting off from pad B at Rocket Lab’s privately-operated launch site on the Mahia Peninsula, the expendable Electron rocket, powered by its nine Rutherford first-stage engines, will head off on a south-easterly trajectory, targeting a 635 km circular orbit inclined at 53 degrees to the Equator. It will be the 41st orbital mission for the Electron rocket overall and the ninth during 2023.

After burning for two minutes and 25 seconds, the Electron first stage will separate and a single Ruthford vacuum engine on the second stage will ignite to continue the rocket’s climb. After reaching a parking orbit, the second stage will separate a little over nine minutes into flight.

The Acadia-2 satellite pictured before encapsulation in the payload fairing of the Electron rocket. Image: Rocket Lab.

After coasting for about 44 minutes, the Curie engine of the Electron kick stage will fire for three minutes to achieve the intended orbit. Separation of the Arcadia-2 satellite will follow approximately 57 minutes, 15 seconds into flight.

Rocket Lab launched the first of the four Acadia series of satellites on a recoverable Electron rocket on August 23, 2023. Capella Space reported “a flawless commissioning” for the satellite within a week of it reaching orbit. The company released the first imagery from the satellite’s cloud-piercing radar on August 31, showing views of roller coasters at amusement parks in the U.S. and Japan.

Mission Status Center

Live coverage will start here about one hour before launch

SpaceX hopes to launch its 65th orbital mission of the year shortly after midnight tonight, but it’s keeping an eye on the hurricane-churned ocean in the booster recovery zone. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral with 22 satellites for the Starlink network is scheduled for 12:03 a.m. EDT (0403 UTC).

The 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station placed the probability of violating weather rules at 35 percent in a forecast issued on Wednesday.

As of the 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) update from the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Lee is a strong, Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour. While the eye of the storm is well to the east of Florida and moving north, the hurricane is creating rough sea conditions in the Atlantic east of the Bahamas, where the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” is to be stationed for the first-stage booster landing.

The Space Force meteorologists noted that booster recovery weather is a “moderate” risk. Waves in the vicinity of the landing zone are forecast to be 9-14 feet today, easing to 7-11 feet overnight.

The FAA has closed the SpaceX-led mishap investigation following the first Starship Integrated Test Flight (IFT). SpaceX founder Elon Musk also published the checklist of 63 items to be completed before the company can apply for a launch license modification for IFT-2.

The pathway to the next launch is now being hashed out between SpaceX and the FAA. Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith reports.