Tag: Private Spaceflight

The first-ever private asteroid mission appears to be over, just a week or so after it left the ground. California startup AstroForge launched its Odin spacecraft on Feb. 26, on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that sent Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission toward the moon. Odin ran into trouble just a few hours later, however, and AstroForge has pretty much given up hope of recovering the 265-pound (120-kilogram) probe. “The chance of talking with Odin is minimal, as at this point, the accuracy of its position is becoming an issue,”…

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The next Starship megarocket to fly is stuck on Earth for a little while longer. SpaceX aimed to launch the eighth test flight of Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — from its Starbase site in South Texas on Monday evening (March 3). That didn’t happen, however. The company encountered issues with both of the vehicle’s elements — its Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage — and called the launch off after holding the countdown clock at T-40 seconds. SpaceX’s Flight 8 Starship rocket stands…

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The world’s first private spaceraft built to visit an asteroid is slowly tumbling in space and the outlook is dire. The spacecraft, called Odin, launched atop a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday (Feb. 26) on a mission to fly by the small asteroid 2022 OB5 for AstroForge, a company that aims to eventually mine the nearby space rock. But just hours after liftoff, Astroforge hit snags with the probe. The last contact was 20 hours after launch. “I think we all know the hope is fading as we continue the mission,”…

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Starship hardware has made it to the pad ahead of a planned liftoff this week. SpaceX posted photos on X today (Feb. 25) showing Super Heavy, the giant first stage of its Starship megarocket, being lifted onto the orbital launch mount at its Starbase site in South Texas. The milestone keeps the company on track to launch the eighth-ever Starship test flight this Friday (Feb. 28). Starship Flight 8 is scheduled to lift off on Friday afternoon (Feb. 28). (Image credit: SpaceX) SpaceX is developing Starship — the biggest and…

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SpaceX has finished its investigation into what went wrong on the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket, which ended with a dramatic explosion. Flight 7 launched on Jan. 16, sending Starship aloft from SpaceX‘s Starbase site in South Texas. The mission was partially successful; SpaceX caught Starship’s giant first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, back at Starbase using the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms as planned. The rocket’s upper stage — known as Starship, or simply “Ship” — was supposed to deploy 10 dummy satellites into a suborbital trajectory and…

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SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will fly again this week, if all goes according to plan. The company is planning to launch Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, for the eighth time on Friday (Feb. 28), Elon Musk said via X yesterday (Feb. 23). The 403.5-foot-tall (123 meters) fully reusable vehicle will lift off from Starbase, SpaceX‘s launch and manufacturing facility in South Texas. The company has not yet announced a target launch time, but you’ll almost certainly be able to watch it live whenever it happens; SpaceX has…

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Blue Origin is targeting next Tuesday (Feb. 25) for its 10th space tourism mission, which will send six people to the final frontier. If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin‘s suborbital New Shepard vehicle will lift off from the company’s West Texas site on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. EST (1630 GMT; 9:30 a.m. local Texas time). You’ll be able to watch the action live, beginning 35 minutes before launch. Five of the six crewmembers who will fly on Blue Origin’s NS-30 suborbital mission. The sixth passenger has not yet…

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Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 1,000 workers, according to media reports. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp announced the cuts in an internal email to employees, which was obtained by CNN and The New York Times, among other outlets. Blue Origin does not disclose how many people it employs, but that number is thought to be around 10,000, according to The New York Times. The new layoffs therefore represent a roughly 10% cull. “We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with…

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A Chinese commercial space launch company is continuing its success with a small solid rocket ahead of a more ambitious launch later this year. The Ceres-1 four-stage solid propellant rocket lifted off at 5:11 a.m. EST on Jan. 20 (1011 GMT; or 8:11 p.m. local time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, northwest China. Galactic Energy, the Ceres-1 manufacturer and operator, announced in a statement that five satellites had been successfully inserted into preplanned orbits. Aboard the flight were four Yunyao-1 commercial meteorological satellites (satellites 37-40)…

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