SpaceX

This long exposure photo shows SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaking into the sky over the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography Fifty-two satellites are on the way to join SpaceX’s Starlink internet network after a sky-lighting blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night, a mission that included the 3,000th spacecraft to launch for the Starlink constellation. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:14:40 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0214:40 GMT Wednesday). The rocket’s nine Merlin 1D main engines flashed to life and the Falcon thundered into a moonlit sky over Florida’s Space Coast, heading northeast to line up with an orbital plane in SpaceX’s Starlink network. The rocke...

A view of Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday morning, where SpaceX rolled a Falcon 9 rocket to the pad for liftoff with another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites. On the right, work continues on the launch pad for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship program. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX continues to launch Falcon 9 rockets from Launch Complex 39A in Florida as construction work advances on the nearby tower for the company’s next-generation Starship rocket. Overnight Tuesday, SpaceX rolled another Falcon 9 to pad 39A for liftoff with the next batch of Starlink internet satellites, just hours after another section of the Starship gantry tower arrived at the pad. The sixth of nine sections for the Starship launch tower moved to pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on a self-propelled transporter Mon...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket heads downrange after a Jan. 31 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Credit: SpaceX With two rockets from industry rivals United Launch Alliance and SpaceX ready for liftoff just 12 hours apart Thursday, the Cape Canaveral spaceport is poised to surpass the record for most missions in a year to fly into orbit from its launch pads. The launch day doubleheader would also mark the shortest span between two space launches from Florida’s Space Coast since 1967. ULA and SpaceX, the two launch companies with the biggest presence on the Space Coast, are scheduled to launch rockets Thursday morning and Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The U.S. Space Force, which runs the Eastern Range that oversees public safety for launches out of Flori...

An illustration of Draper’s SERIES-2 lunar lander, which will deliver science and technology payloads to the moon for NASA in 2025. Credit: Draper NASA has awarded Draper a $73 million contract to deliver science instruments to the far side of the moon on a commercial robotic lander in 2025, the eighth award through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Officials with the companies flying the first two CLPS missions, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, said recently their commercial landers are scheduled to launch late this year or early next year. The CLPS program is intended to foster development of commercial capabilities to land on the moon, delivering science instruments and cargo in support of NASA’s Artemis program. The first seven CLPS mission task orders awarded ...