Tag: Launches & Spacecraft

Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

NeRD

Refresh 2024-04-26T19:42:30.435Z 1st Starliner astronauts finish dress rehearsal before May 6 launch NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams finished a big dress rehearsal before their historic launch upon Boeing Starliner no earlier than May 6, agency officials said Friday (April 26) hours after the rehearsal finished. “Wilmore and Williams completed a series of launch day milestones including suiting up, working in a flight deck simulator, and operating the same software that will be used during the launch,” NASA officials wrote in a blog post on Friday (April 26). The…

Read More

Watch China launch 3 astronauts to Tiangong space station today

NeRD

China will launch its latest set of crewmembers to Tiangong space station today (April 25), and you can watch the action live. The three-astronaut Shenzhou 18 mission is scheduled to lift off atop a Long March 2F rocket from China’s Jiuquan spaceport at 8:59 a.m. EDT (1259 GMT; 8:59 p.m. Beijing time) on April 25. Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of Chinese broadcaster CCTV. Coverage is expected to begin around 5:45 a.m. EDT (0945 GMT). Related: China rolls out rocket for next astronaut mission to Tiangong space station…

Read More

China rolls out rocket for next astronaut mission to Tiangong space station (photos)

NeRD

China is all set to send its next crew to its Tiangong space station. The Shenzhou 18 spacecraft currently sits atop a Long March 2F rocket, on its pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket was transferred 0.93 miles (1.5 kilometers) by rail from the vertical integration building to the pad on April 17, according to China’s human spaceflight agency (CMSA). CMSA said Shenzhou 18 will be launched at an appropriate time in the near future. However, airspace closure notices indicate the launch to the Tiangong Space Station is…

Read More

Final launch of Delta IV Heavy rocket scrubbed late in countdown

NeRD

We’ll have to wait at least one more day to see the swan song of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) powerful Delta IV Heavy rocket. The Delta IV Heavy was supposed to launch for the final time this afternoon (March 28), sending a U.S. spy satellite skyward from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. But the attempt was scrubbed with just under four minutes left in the countdown “due to an issue with the gaseous nitrogen pipeline which provides pneumatic pressure to the launch vehicle systems,” ULA wrote in an…

Read More

Flight attendant becomes 1st Belarusian woman in space on ISS-bound Soyuz launch

NeRD

For the first time, a spacecraft has lifted off with a flight attendant aboard, but there will be no drink service during the flight. Marina Vasilevskaya, who also served as a flight instructor for Belavia Airlines in her home country of Belarus, traded her attendant uniform for a Russian Sokol pressure suit to become the first Belarusian woman to fly into space. On Saturday (March 23), she launched on Russia’s Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on a mission to the…

Read More

Dying SpaceX rocket creates glowing, galaxy-like spiral in the middle of the Northern Lights

NeRD

A massive swirl of bright white light seemingly appeared from out of nowhere in the night sky above the Arctic last week, briefly upstaging a vibrant aurora display that spanned thousands of miles. The ethereal, galaxy-shaped light show was caused by an illuminated cloud of frozen fuel that was dumped in space by a SpaceX rocket, which released dozens of satellites into low-Earth orbit.  Astronomers call this rare phenomenon a “SpaceX spiral,” and expect them to become a much more common sight in the future. Related: Eerie blue spiral in…

Read More

China launches satellite to support future moon missions (video)

NeRD

China launched a satellite toward the moon this week to help support the country’s lunar ambitions. On Tuesday (March 19), a Long March 8 rocket took off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern Chinese island of Hainan carrying the Queqiao-2 satellite. The spacecraft is what’s known as a relay satellite, meaning it will help pass messages back and forth between China’s Chang’e moon spacecraft, as well as other vehicles on the lunar surface, and mission controllers on Earth. Queqiao-2 is intended for a highly elliptical orbit around…

Read More

SpaceX launching 22 Starlink satellites from California tonight

NeRD

SpaceX plans to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit tonight (March 18). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off tonight from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base during a nearly four-hour window that opens at 10:28 p.m. EDT (0228 GMT on March 19). You can watch the action live via SpaceX’s account on X, beginning about five minutes before the window opens. Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky If all goes according to…

Read More

FAA grants license for SpaceX’s March 14 Starship launch

NeRD

Starship’s third-ever test flight is officially on for Thursday morning (March 14). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today (March 13) that it has awarded a launch license for the mission. “The FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements,” the agency wrote in a post on X this afternoon. Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, is scheduled to lift off on Thursday from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas during a 110-minute window that opens at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).…

Read More

Watch Rocket Lab launch a commercial radar-imaging satellite on March 12

NeRD

Rocket Lab will launch a commercial radar-imaging satellite on Tuesday morning (March 12), and you can watch the action live. An Electron rocket topped with one of Japanese company Synspective’s Strix-3 satellites is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab‘s New Zealand launch site on Tuesday during an hour-long window that opens at 10:13 a.m. EDT (1413 GMT; 3:13 a.m. local New Zealand time on March 13).  You can watch the event here at Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company’s website. Coverage is expected to start…

Read More