Tag: Private Spaceflight

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to fine SpaceX more than $630,000 for allegedly failing to comply with regulations on two launches last year. “Safety drives everything we do at the FAA, including a legal responsibility for the safety oversight of companies with commercial space transportation licenses,” FAA Chief Counsel Marc Nichols said in an emailed statement today (Sept. 17).  “Failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences,” he added. The first launch cited by the FAA is PSN SATRIA, which lofted an…

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After an eventful five days in space, which included the first-ever commercial spacewalk, the private astronaut crew of Polaris Dawn is returning to Earth.  If all goes according to plan, the SpaceX Dragon capsule Resilience — orbital home to the four-person  over the past five days — will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida on Sunday, Sept. 15, at about 3:36 a.m. EDT (0736 GMT), SpaceX said in an update. The landing will mark the end of Polaris Dawn, a mission to…

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SpaceX’s Starship will be grounded for a while longer yet. Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — flew for the fourth time in June, and SpaceX has been gearing up for flight number five ever since. But that test mission is probably still at least 2.5 months away, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). “SpaceX must meet all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements prior to FAA launch authorization,” agency officials said in an emailed statement to Space.com on Wednesday (Sept. 11). “A final license…

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The first-ever private spacewalk will happen early Thursday morning (Sept. 12), and you can watch the historic action live. The pioneering extravehicular activity (EVA) will be conducted by Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, two members of the four-person Polaris Dawn mission, which launched to Earth orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early Tuesday morning (Sept. 10). The spacewalk is expected to start at 2:23 a.m. EDT (0623 GMT), according to SpaceX. You can watch it live here at Space.com or directly via the company. Coverage will begin around 1:20…

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SpaceX’s trailblazing Polaris Dawn mission will soon begin its daring trek into Earth orbit — and with it, the plunge through the belt of radiation wrapped around our planet. The four-person crew of civilians, led by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Tuesday (Sept. 10) after a series of launch delays attributed to technical issues and bad weather. Soon, the crew will attain a maximum height of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) — three times the altitude of the International Space…

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SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will start flying Mars missions just two years from now, if all goes according to plan. “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Saturday evening (Sept. 7), in a post that announced the bold new target timelines. (Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions once every 26 months.) “Flight rate will grow exponentially…

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Blue Origin will launch its eighth human spaceflight this week, if all goes according to plan. Jeff Bezos‘ company is targeting Thursday (Aug. 29) for NS-26, its latest suborbital space tourism mission. The reusable New Shepard rocket-capsule combo is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin‘s West Texas site at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT; 8 a.m. local Texas time). You’ll be able to watch the action live: Blue Origin will livestream the launch, beginning at 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT). The crewmembers for NS-26, Blue Origin’s next suborbital space…

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SpaceX is gearing up for more-frequent launches of its Starship megarocket. The company currently sends Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, aloft from an orbital launch mount at Starbase, its site near the South Texas border city of Brownsville. But SpaceX is working to install a second launch pad at the facility, and it recently notched a big milestone toward this goal. “Second launch tower stacked as the newest addition to Starbase,” the company announced via X on Wednesday (Aug. 21), in a post that featured three…

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SpaceX‘s next astronaut mission won’t get off the ground this month after all. Crew-9, SpaceX‘s ninth operational flight to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, had been targeted to lift off on Aug. 18. But it has been pushed back to no earlier than Sept. 24, the agency announced today (Aug. 6). “This adjustment allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory,” NASA said in an update this afternoon. Crew Flight Test (CFT) is…

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