SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launches with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography
SpaceX launched a refrigerator-sized NASA X-ray observatory from Kennedy Space Center into an unusual orbit hugging the equator Thursday, beginning a $214 million mission to study black holes and super-compact neutron stars.
Yusaku Maezawa, Yozo Hirano, and Alexander Misurkin, wearing blue flight suits, joined seven other residents on the International Space Station after docking Dec. 8. Credit: NASA TV / Spaceflight Now
A Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese billionaire and his production assistant rocketed into orbit Wednesday and headed for the International Space Station for an 12-day visit, the first by paying “space tourists” in more than a decade.
The James Webb Space Telescope is loaded with toxic propellants by technicians wearing protective self-contained suits. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Piron
A crane at the Guiana Space Center in South America will hoist the nearly $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope more than 15 stories above the floor of a rocket assembly hangar this weekend to position the observatory on top of its Ariane 5 launcher for blastoff later this month.
United Launch Alliance’s 90th Atlas 5 rocket lifts off with the Space Force’s STP-3 mission. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now
United Launch Alliance deployed two U.S. Space Force technology demonstration satellites into an on-target orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator Tuesday after a booming blastoff before dawn from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas 5 rocket.
Blue Origin’s mission patch for the NS-19 spaceflight. Credit: Blue Origin
A forecast of high winds at Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas has prompted the company to delay its first suborbital space shot with a full complement of six passengers from Thursday to Saturday.
An Electron rocket fires off its launch pad in New Zealand at 7:02 p.m. EST (0002 GMT) with two BlackSky optical Earth imaging satellites. Credit: Rocket Lab
Two more BlackSky high-resolution optical remote sensing satellites rode a Rocket Lab Electron launcher into orbit Wednesday from New Zealand, the second mission for Rocket Lab in three weeks, and the third satellite delivery for BlackSky in the same period.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand carrying two small BlackSky Earth observation satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
Live coverage of the Soyuz MS-20 mission on the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Japanese spaceflight participant Yozo Hirano, Russan cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, and Japanese space tourist Yusaku Maezawa pose for a crew portrait at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. Credit: Roscosmos
A Russian Soyuz rocket is set for blastoff Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire businessman, his cameraman and production assistant, and a veteran Russian cosmonaut commander on a 12-day trip to the International Space Station.
NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer spacecraft ready for encapsulation inside the payload fairing of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: NASA
A NASA astronomy satellite will be the smallest payload to ever get a dedicated ride on a Falcon 9 rocket when it takes off from Florida this week, but the SpaceX launcher will need to flex its muscles to reach the mission’s unusual orbit hugging the equator.
An Atlas 5 rocket stands on launch pad 41 ahead of the STP-3 mission. Credit: United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket will set an endurance record after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Tuesday, targeting the delivery of two U.S. military tech demo satellites directly into a geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with the U.S. Space Force’s STP-3 mission, carrying two satellites hosting technology demonstration experiments to geosynchronous orbit. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration on-board the U.S. military’s STPSat 6 satellite, showing laser links with a ground station and the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
A $320 million NASA experiment to test high-speed laser communications links between Earth and space is poised for launch Tuesday, tagging along for a ride to geosynchronous orbit on a US Space Force mission aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
Training jets fly over pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center earlier this year ahead of the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission. Credit: Inspiration4 / John Kraus
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, says crews have started construction of the first Starship orbital launch pad in Florida inside the gates of historic launch complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
An Atlas 5 rocket stands on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station before launch on the STP-3 mission. Credit: United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance delayed the planned launch of an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Sunday after discovering a kerosene fuel leak in the launch pad’s ground storage system. Officials tentatively rescheduled launch with two U.S. military satellites for Monday morning.
A Soyuz ST-B launcher takes off from the Guiana Space Center on Saturday night with two Galileo navigation satellites. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin
Deployment of Europe’s independent Galileo navigation network resumed Saturday night with an on-target launch of two satellites aboard a Soyuz rocket, the final Arianespace mission from French Guiana before the historic liftoff of the James Webb Space Telescope later this month.
United Launch Alliance rolled an Atlas 5 rocket to its launch pad Friday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for liftoff before dawn Sunday on a mission to carry two U.S. Space Force technology demonstration satellites into orbit.
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