SpaceX

An artist’s rendering of the Hera spacecraft along with CubeSats Milani and Juventas around the asteroid, Dimorphous. Graphic: ESA The European Space Agency and SpaceX managed to find good enough weather right in the nick of time to launch a mission to a binary asteroid Monday morning. The Hera mission is a follow-on operation, which will examine Didymos and it moon, Dimorphos, after the latter was struck by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft. “It’s been 18 years we’ve been working to put this mission together, so you can imagine our emotions, not only mine, but the whole team,” said Ian Carnelli, the Hera project manager, during a prelaunch media briefing. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 10:52 a.m. EDT (14...

By thirty-seven seconds after liftoff, it was clear one of two strap-on solid fuel boostersvwas suffered an anomaly as can be seen by sparks and debris falling away from the rocket. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now United Launch Alliance fired off a next-generation Vulcan rocket Friday in the second of two “certification” test flights needed before the new launcher can be used to carry high-priority national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. One of two solid-propellant strap-on boosters provided by Northrop Grumman suffered an anomaly of some sort during the climb out of the lower atmosphere, but the Vulcan managed to continue on into orbit. What impact the issue might have on the Vulcan’s certification is not yet known, but ULA CEO To...

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket sits at launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) ahead of the planned Cert-2 launch on Oct. 4, 2024. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now United Launch Alliance is preparing for its final planned test flight with its new Vulcan rocket in the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning. The mission, dubbed Cert-2, is the second of two missions needed before ULA can begin launching U.S. national security payloads on Vulcan. Liftoff of the Vulcan rocket from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for the beginning of a three-hour window at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC). The weather forecast suggests an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions at liftoff. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff. Vulcan is design...

An artist’s rendering of the Hera spacecraft alongside the CubeSats, Juventas and Milani. Graphic: ESA The European Space Agency is on the cusp of launching its first planetary defense mission, a complement to NASA’s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. The goal of these missions is to understand how Earth can be protected from a potentially destructive asteroid strike. On Thursday, the Hera spacecraft, along with two CubeSats, are set to be encapsulated inside the fairings of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a planned launch on Monday, Oct. 7. The moment will begin a roughly two-year journey out to the binary asteroid system of Didymos and its moon, Dimorphos. At hand is a mission to study the impacts left by DART when it collided with Dimorphos in 2022, shortening is or...

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket made the one-third of a mile journey from its Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station late in the morning on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The rocket will fly ULA’s second certification mission set to launch no earlier than Friday, Oct. 4. Image: Will Robinson-Smith/Spaceflight Now United Launch Alliance returned to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 with its Vulcan rocket ahead of the vehicle’s second launch. ULA needs to successfully fly this second certification mission before it can begin launching national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff of the mission dubbed Cert-2 is targeting Friday, Oct. 4, during a three-hour l...