SpaceX

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett One year ago today, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft docked with the International Space Station to begin its long-awaited Crew Flight Test with NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore onboard. A year later, the future of the Starliner program remains uncertain as NASA announced late Friday that the next flight of the spacecraft was being delayed from no earlier than late 2025 to now early 2026 at the soonest. The agency said the timing of the next launch is “pending system certification and resolution of Starliner’s technical issues.” Repeating what it sa...

File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now SpaceX is preparing to launch its first customer mission of the month on Friday night with a Falcon 9 flight heading to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The late-night launch of the SXM-10 satellite for SiriusXM, a satellite radio company, is targeting liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:19 p.m. EDT (0319 UTC on June 7), which is the opening of a four-hour window. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning an hour prior to liftoff.  SpaceX will use Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number B1085, to launch Friday’s mission, which will be its eighth flight. It previously launched mission su...

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on May 31, 2025, on the Starlink 11-18 mission. Image: SpaceX.SpaceX closed out May with its 16th Falcon 9 launch of the month. The Saturday afternoon launch from the company’s West Coast launch pad carried 27 Starlink V2 Mini satellites to a low Earth orbit. Liftoff of the Starlink 11-18 mission from a foggy Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 1:10 p.m. PDT (4:10 p.m. EDT, 2010 UTC). The mission employed first stage booster B1071, which was making its 25th flight. Previously this booster flew three rideshare missions, five National Reconnaissance Office missions, and 14 times with batches of Starlink satellites. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1071 landed on the drone ship, ‘O...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin the Starlink 12-19 mission on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now Update June 3, 3:12 p.m. EDT: The first stage booster successfully landed on the droneship. SpaceX managed to launch its latest batch of Starlink satellites Tuesday morning following a scrub in the pre-dawn hours of Monday. Liftoff of the Starlink 12-19 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 12:43 a.m. EDT (0443 UTC) on Tuesday, June 3, as thunderstorms pushed offshore.  On Monday, the 45th Weather Squadron published a new launch weather forecast for this next launch opportunity. In it, meteorologists said SpaceX would be facing a 65 ...

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket lifts off from New Zealand to begin the ‘Full Stream Ahead’ mission on June 2, 2025. Image: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab successfully launched its 65th Electron rocket to date on a mission in support of its customer, BlackSky, and the next launch for its Gen-3 satellite constellation. Teams launched the mission, dubbed ‘Full Stream Ahead,’ from Pad A at Rocket Lab’s launch complex in Mahia, New Zealand, at 11:57 a.m. NZT on June 3 (7:57 p.m. EDT, 2357 UTC on June 2). “With each successive launch BlackSky expands on-orbit capacity, introduces Gen-3 capabilities, and furthers our ability to meet the demands of the most time-dominant missions,” said Brian O’Toole, BlackSky CEO, in a post on X following the launch. “Our partnership with Rocket Lab has demonstrated excepti...