Space News & Blog Articles

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Mission Status Center

Live coverage will start here about one hour before launch

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.

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SpaceX will launch another batch of satellites for the company’s Starlink internet service from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:57 p.m. PDT Monday (2:57 a.m. EDT / 0657 UTC Tuesday). We’ll have live coverage of the liftoff in our Launch Pad Live stream.



A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 22 second-generation Starlink internet satellites at 7:56 p.m. EDT (2356 UTC) Friday evening from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Additional launch opportunities are available at 11:12 p.m. EDT (0312 UTC) and 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 UTC). The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will land on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster is making its 7th flight.

Starship 25 is lifted atop Super Heavy booster by the launch pad ‘chopsticks’. Image: SpaceX.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Friday the conclusion its mishap investigation into the first integrated test flight of SpaceX’s reusable Starship launch vehicle. It stressed SpaceX has 63 corrective actions that need to be taken before Starship can make a second test flight.