Space News & Blog Articles

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket fires its kerosene-fueled main engine seconds after dropping from the company’s Boeing 747 carrier jet. Credit: Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit’s air-launched rocket aced its first operational mission Wednesday, firing into orbit from the wing of a 747 carrier jet southwest of Los Angeles to deploy small satellites for the U.S. Army, Navy, the Missile Defense Agency, the Dutch military, and the Polish company SatRevolution.

A Soyuz booster takes off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome Thursday with 36 OneWeb satellites. Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage deployed 36 more OneWeb internet satellites into orbit Thursday, bringing the company’s fleet to 254 spacecraft, enough to start commercial service above 50 degrees latitude.

Russia’s automated Progress MS-17 cargo ship is approaching the International Space Station for docking at 9:03 p.m. EDT Thursday (0103 GMT Friday), wrapping up a two-day journey from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with nearly 2.7 tons of fuel, food, water, and supplies.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome with 36 OneWeb broadband satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin the Transporter 2 rideshare mission. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket and 88 small satellites from Cape Canaveral Wednesday, sending the rideshare payloads on a southerly track into a polar orbit and notching the eighth successful flight of a reusable booster that debuted exactly one year ago.

Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography

A private helicopter flew into restricted airspace near Cape Canaveral moments before the scheduled liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday. SpaceX chief Elon Musk said the keep out zone for launches is “unreasonably gigantic” and called for updated regulations.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket. The air-launched rocket will climb into orbit with seven small satellites after release from a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft southwest of Los Angeles. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket under the wing of the company’s Boeing 747 carrier jet at Mojave Air and Space Port. Credit: Virgin Orbit

On the heels of its first successful orbital launch in January, Virgin Orbit is gearing up for its first operational mission Wednesday with a flight of its air-launched rocket off the coast of California to deploy seven small satellites.

EDITOR’S NOTE: NASA TV’s live launch coverage in English begins at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT). The Roscosmos webcast in Russian begins at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT).

Thomas Pesquet moves the new solar array to the P6 truss for installation. Image: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA crewmate Shane Kimbrough floated back outside the International Space Station Friday and deployed a 60-foot-long roll-out solar array, the second of six new blankets being installed to upgrade the lab’s power system and offset age-related degradation.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA crewmate Shane Kimbrough floated back outside the International Space Station Friday and deployed a 60-foot-long roll-out solar array, the second of six new blankets being installed to upgrade the lab’s power system and offset age-related degradation.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rocket fires its engines for an on-pad test-firing Tuesday at Cape Canaveral. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now

SpaceX said Thursday it has postponed the next launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, previously scheduled for Friday at Cape Canaveral, due to unspecified technical concerns. The Falcon 9 will launch on a commercial rideshare mission with more than 80 small satellites.

The Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter is lowered on top of the Space Launch System core stage inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

NASA has stacked the next piece of the agency’s first Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center, adding an adapter structure to connect the launch vehicle’s core stage and upper stage, which is scheduled to be installed next week.

A Falcon 9 rocket descends to a touchdown at Landing Zone 1 after a launch in August 2020. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on a southerly coast-hugging trajectory from Cape Canaveral Tuesday to place 88 small satellites into a polar orbit. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will return to Florida’s Space Coast for the first onshore rocket landing at Cape Canaveral since December.



One of InSight’s solar arrays, on the left, is covered in dust in this picture taken in May. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Without a fortuitous whirlwind to clear dust off its solar panels, NASA’s InSight lander could end its mission on Mars within a year due to dropping power levels, the project’s chief scientist said last week.

EDITOR’S NOTE: NASA TV’s live coverage of the Cygnus spacecraft’s departure from the International Space Station begins at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT).

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission will launch 88 small satellites on the Transporter 2 rideshare mission. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

The Defense Department’s Space Development Agency envisions deploying a constellation of hundreds of small satellites called the “Transport Layer” for global communications, data relay, and targeting. Credit: Space Development Agency

The first five payloads from the Space Development Agency, an organization charged with rapidly infusing emerging technologies into the U.S. military’s space programs, are among more than 80 satellites awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral Tuesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.