SpaceX

Technicians with the European Space Agency and Airbus/Airbus Netherlands are shown performing an illumination test on one of the solar array wing panels during installation on the Orion spacecraft for Artemis I inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 30, 2020. The solar arrays were extended, inspected, and then retracted, before installation on the spacecraft. Each solar array panel will generate 11 kilowatts of power and span about 63 feet. Image: NASA/Frank Michaux Legacy names in European spaceflight and defense, Airbus, Leonardo and Thales, announced a memorandum of understanding on Thursday to combine forces in a new entity designed to rival other aerospace juggernauts in this arena, like Boeing, Lockheed M...

The two SpainSat Next Generation satellites from Hisdesat are pictured in a cleanroom. Image: Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Government of Spain A SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage will fly Thursday for the 21st and final time — a rare expendable mission for the company’s reusable rocket, which will deploy a communications satellite for Spain. The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday night, but was delayed 24 hours for reasons not disclosed by SpaceX. The rocket was sighted at the launch pad Wednesday morning, but it returned to its assembly hangar before rolling out again. SpaceX said the Falcon 9 first-stage booster will not be recovered on this mission “due to the additional performance required to deliver this payload to orbit”. The rocket will not be fitted...

File: A Falcon 9 rocket stands in the launch position at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of the planned liftoff of the Starlink 6-61 mission on Oct. 22, 2024. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now SpaceX is set to break another reuse record on Sunday when it launches a Falcon 9 booster for a record-breaking 31st time. The company’s most flown rocket will be used to launch the Starlink 10-17 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 is currently scheduled for 1:39 p.m. EDT (1739 UTC) towards the end of Sunday’s four-hour launch window. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.  The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a greater than 95 percent chance for favorable weat...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soars away from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Kuiper Falcon 03 mission. The mission adds another 24 Project Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit for Amazon. Image: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now Update Oct. 13, 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 UTC): SpaceX confirmed deployment of the Kuiper satellites. After more than a week of launch delays, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with two dozen of Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet satellites onboard Monday night. The mission came about an hour and a half following the splashdown of SpaceX’s Starship rocket at the conclusion of Starship Flight 11. The mission, dubbed Kuiper Falcon 03 or KF-03, faced several days of launch delays due to poor ...

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 at Mahia, New Zealand on the ‘Owl New World’ mission for Synspective. Image: Rocket Lab Japan-based Earth observation company, Synspective, launched its seventh StriX satellite into low Earth orbit, part of a multi-launch deal with Rocket Lab. On Wednesday morning in Mahia, New Zealand (Tuesday afternoon on the East Coast of the U.S.), a Rocket Lab Electron rocket took flight from Pad A at Launch Complex 1 to begin a roughly 50-minute-long mission. Launch teams confirmed a nominal deployment of the satellite into a 583 km circular orbit. The mission, dubbed ‘Owl New World’, continued the avian theming to Synspective’s missions with Rocket Lab. That theme was chosen because this constellation consists of synthetic aperture radar (...