Tag: Launches & Spacecraft

A strange Earth shines in new imagery captured by a European asteroid mission. The Hera spacecraft, which launched this month to study a binary asteroid system up close. turned its gaze back at our planet to capture spooky views of Earth in multiple wavelengths of light. The imagery was captured fro roughly 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) away, using Hera’s HyperScout H hyperspectral imager. Besides being beautiful space art, the imagery “allows us to observe cloud patterns on our planet”, instrument team member Marcel Popescu of Romania’s University of…

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China’s next human spaceflight mission is on its way into orbit. A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 19 crew spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center today (Oct. 19) at 4:27 p.m. EDT (2027 GMT; 4:27 a.m. Oct. 30 Beijing time), rising into a night sky above the spaceport. Aboard are commander Cai Xuzhe, 48, who was a member of the Shenzhou 14 mission, and rookie astronauts Song Lingdong, 34, a former air force pilot, and Wang Haoze, also 34, a spaceflight engineer. Shenzhou 19…

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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has expressed concerns over reports that SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nelson was on stage at Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Friday (Oct. 25) when he was asked about an Oct. 24 Wall Street Journal article, which reported that Musk has, in secret, been in regular contact with Putin since late 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February that year. The report cites former U.S., European and Russian officials. “[SpaceX] have been phenomenally successful…

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SpaceX plans to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from California this morning (Oct. 29). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft, including 13 with direct-to-cell (DTC) capability, is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base today, during a nearly hour-long window that opens at 7:44 a.m. EDT (1144 GMT; 4:44 a.m. local California time). SpaceX will stream the launch live via X, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth…

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SpaceX’s historic rocket catch earlier this month was even more dramatic than it looked. That catch occurred on Oct. 13, during the fifth test flight of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket. Starship’s huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to Earth about seven minutes after liftoff, nestling next to its launch tower, which secured the rocket with its “chopstick” arms. But that epic moment almost didn’t happen: Super Heavy was just one second away from aborting the launch-tower landing and crashing into a patch of nearby ground, SpaceX engineers told…

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SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Space Coast on Saturday evening (Oct. 26). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 GMT). The first stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lands on the Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X) As to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff. It touched…

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SpaceX is deep into planning for its newest Starship launch. Super Heavy, the first stage of the rocket that hefts Starship into space, was moved to a Starbase pad for testing ahead of the planned sixth flight of the next generation space system, SpaceX officials stated on Tuesday (Oct. 22). (Starbase is the location in south Texas where Starship launches are performed.) “Flight 6 Super Heavy booster moved to the Starbase pad for testing,” SpaceX representatives wrote on X, formerly Twitter, noting they had only just returned the last Super…

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SpaceX plans to launch 23 more of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday evening (Oct. 23). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight, during a 3.5-hour window that opens at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 GMT). SpaceX had been targeting Tuesday (Oct. 22) but called that try off due to weather concerns. SpaceX will livestream the launch on X, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon…

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SpaceX sent a set of internet satellites to orbit for another company early Sunday morning (Oct. 20). SpaceX launched the last batch of Eutelsat OneWeb’s V1 satellites from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday at 1:13 a.m. EDT (0513 GMT; 10:13 p.m. on Oct. 19 local California time). The Falcon 9‘s first stage returned to Earth as planned, touching down at Vandenberg’s Landing Zone 4 about eight minutes after lifting off. It was the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to…

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SpaceX just added another batch of launches to its already-busy manifest. The U.S. Space Force announced on Friday (Oct. 18) that it has awarded SpaceX $733.6 million, in the form of two “National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 Launch Service Task Orders.” Together, the two task orders cover seven launches for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and one “mission set” for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), according to Space Force officials. “In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,”…

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