Space News & Blog Articles

Illustration of the Vega C rocket with its Zefiro 40 second stage firing. Credit: Arianespace

The final two spacecraft in Airbus’s four-satellite, 600 million-euro commercial Pléiades Neo Earth observation fleet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch from French Guiana Tuesday night, falling victim to a failure of a European Vega C rocket.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega C rocket with the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 commercial Earth observation satellites for Airbus. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

A Vega C rocket on its launch pad in French Guiana with the Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging satellites inside the payload fairing. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/S. Martin

Two Pléiades Neo Earth observation satellites are set to join Airbus’s constellation of high-resolution optical imagers with a launch Tuesday night from French Guiana on the first commercial flight of Europe’s Vega C rocket, a mission delayed from November to change out suspect hardware on the launcher’s payload fairing.

Russia’s Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is pictured docked at the International Space Station in this Oct. 8 file photo. Credit: NASA

Russian managers are assessing whether a damaged Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station can safely carry its three-man crew back to Earth in late March as planned or whether a replacement must be launched to take its place, officials said Monday.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia. The Electron rocket will carry three radio frequency monitoring microsatellites into orbit for HawkEye 360. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher on the pad at Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: Rocket Lab / Trevor Mahlmann

Rocket Lab said Saturday that the company received final approval from NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration to launch their first mission from the United States on Sunday, clearing final regulatory and technical hurdles with a new autonomous range safety destruct unit that delayed the launch more than two years.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Starlink 4-37 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 54 Starlink broadband satellites. Follow us on Twitter.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Watch a replay of our live coverage of the launch here.

SES’s first two O3b mPOWER satellites stacked on top of another, ready for encapsulation inside SpaceX’s launcher fairing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: SpaceX

The first two spacecraft in an 11-satellite refresh of SES’s Medium Earth Orbit O3b internet constellation are poised to ride a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral on Friday, less than two weeks after shipment to the Florida spaceport from a Boeing factory in California already fully fueled and integrated for launch.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with the Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT, satellite for NASA and the French space agency CNES. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT, satellite during solar array deployment testing at Thales Alenia Space’s factory in Cannes, France. Credit: Thales Alenia Space

A French-built satellite equipped with an innovative U.S.-made radar instrument is buttoned up for blastoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Friday from California, kicking off a mission to investigate the link between Earth’s water cycle and our planet’s changing climate.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket stands on its launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, awaiting liftoff with the U.S.-French SWOT mission. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has delayed the launch from California of a Falcon 9 rocket with a U.S.-French environmental monitoring satellite from Thursday to Friday, allowing more time to review the source of moisture in two of the launcher’s booster engines.



Live coverage of the flight of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

A European Ariane 5 rocket blasts off from Kourou, French Guiana, on Tuesday with Europe’s MTG-I1 weather satellite and Intelsat’s Galaxy 35 and 36 communications satellites. Credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut

A European Ariane 5 rocket fired off a launching stand Tuesday in tropical South America with the vanguard of a modernized series of weather satellites to improve storm forecasts for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and two Intelsat television broadcasting satellites to cover the United States, a heavyweight payload totaling more than 24,000 pounds (about 11 metric tons).

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Ariane 5 rocket with the MTG-I1 geostationary weather satellite for ESA and Eumetsat, and the Galaxy 35 and 36 communications satellites for Intelsat. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

The MTG-I1 satellite is integrated with its Ariane 5 rocket at the Guiana Space Center. Credit: Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Baudon

The first in a new generation of European weather satellites is set for launch Tuesday on a mission that promises to improve the timeliness and precision of weather forecasts for Europe and Africa, sharing a ride to space from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket with two Intelsat communications satellites.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft descends under three. orange and white main parachutes. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Orion spacecraft parachuted to a gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean Sunday west of Baja California, ending an unpiloted test flight to the moon that spanned 25-and-a-half days and 1.4 million miles, proving out a new rocket and capsule to carry astronauts back to Earth’s celestial companion.

Live coverage of the flight of the Space Launch System moon rocket and Orion spacecraft on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission . Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

Artist’s illustration of the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft firing its lasers toward the moon’s surface. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight spacecraft, a small briefcase-size CubeSat that could break new ground in the search for water ice on the moon, is hitching a ride to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket along with the privately-developed Hakuto-R moon lander after missing a launch opportunity on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission.