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The first all-private crew to fly into Earth orbit launched Sept. 15 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, streaking into space on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket powered by nine Merlin main engines.

The 215-foot-tall (65-meter) rocket lifted off from pad 39A at Kennedy at 8:02:56 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15 (0002:56 GMT on Sept. 16) to kick off a three-day journey in space.

The four-person Inspiration4 crew rode into orbit seated in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft.

Led by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman who funded the mission, the four civilian space travelers trained for six months to prepare for the flight. Inspiration4’s mission ended Sept. 18 with a successful splashdown of the Crew Dragon capsule in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral.

Inspiration4 was the first all-private, non-government crew to launch into low Earth orbit. Isaacman was joined on the mission by Sian Proctor, community college professor and artist, Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant and cancer survivor, and Chris Sembroski, a data engineer and a U.S. Air Force veteran.

A Long March 7 rocket lifts off with the Tianzhou cargo mission. Credit: CASC

An unpiloted Chinese cargo ship launched and docked with the Tiangong space station Monday, delivering supplies to support the next three-person crew on the complex for six months after their arrival in October.

The automated Tianzhou 3 supply freighter took off from the Wenchang launch base on Hainan Island — China’s southernmost province — at 3:10 a.m. EDT (0710 GMT; 3:10 p.m. Beijing time) Monday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

A 174-foot-tall (53-meter) Long March 7 rocket carried the Tianzhou 3 cargo ship into orbit.

The kerosene-fueled rocket ignited six booster engines to climb off the launch pad at Wenchang with 1.6 million pounds of thrust. An on-board guidance computer commanded the rocket to head southeast over the South China Sea, lining up with the Tiangong space station’s orbit inclined 41.5 degrees to the equator.

The Long March 7 is a two-stage rocket augmented with four strap-on boosters. The rocket consumed 45,000 gallons, or 170 cubic meters, of kerosene fuel in combination with cryogenic liquid oxygen during the 10-minute ascent into orbit.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spaceship descends to the Atlantic Ocean Saturday to end the Inspiration4 mission. Credit: Inspiration4 / SpaceX

Four civilian space travelers rode a SpaceX capsule through a blazing re-entry back into Earth’s atmosphere Saturday evening and safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral, completing a historic 71 hours in space as the first privately-funded, non-government crew to fly in orbit.

The four-person Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft descended under four main parachutes to an on-target splashdown at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT) Saturday about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Kennedy Space Center, where the private Inspiration4 mission launched Wednesday.

“Inspiration4, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home to planet Earth,” radioed Kris Young, SpaceX’s space operations director, moments after splashdown. “Your mission has shown the world that space is for all of us, and that everyday people can make extraordinary impacts in the world around them.

“Thank you for sharing your leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity,” Young said, referring to the mission’s four principles, or “pillars,” attached to each Inspiration4 crew member.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman and civilian pilot who paid SpaceX for the mission, replied that the mission was a “heck of a ride … We’re just getting started!”

Live coverage of the re-entry and splashdown of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with the Inspiration4 mission, the first all-private human spaceflight to low Earth orbit. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

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The Inspiration4 crew members wrapped up their third and final day in orbit Saturday and set their sights on an automated plunge back to Earth, a steep descent to an evening splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral to wrap up a history-making flight.

If all goes well, the SpaceX Crew Dragon’s flight computer will fire the ship’s Draco braking rockets at 6:16 p.m. EDT, slowing the capsule enough to lower the far side of the orbit into the atmosphere for a southwest-to-northeast descent across Central America and the Florida peninsula.

Heralded by sonic booms, the capsule is expected to splash down under four large parachutes at 7:06 p.m. EDT about 30 miles northeast of the crew’s Kennedy Space Center launch site, closing out the first all-civilian privately-funded flight to orbit in space history.

Expected mission duration: 71 hours and three minutes.

The Inspiration4 crew downlinks a live update from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX

On their final full day in space Friday, the all-civilian Inspiration4 crew circling Earth inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule chatted with Tom Cruise, rang the closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange, and downlinked a live video update showing views outside their dome cupola window.

The crew members demonstrated acrobatic spins in the microgravity environment aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft, described scientific experiments that are part of the mission, and showed off artistic efforts, including sketches and a brief musical performance.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman and civilian pilot who paid for the first all-private crew flight to orbit, thanked followers for supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the non-profit institution that is the focus of a fundraising campaign attached to the Inspiration4 mission.

“A big part of our mission here at Inspiration4 is to inspire what can be done here in space because there’s an awful lot of it,” Isaacman, 38, said in a video downlink from space at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) Friday. “We’ve got to get out and explore it, but also we have our responsibilities that we need to take care of back on Earth, and top on our list right now is conquering childhood cancer. That’s why we’re supporting St. Jude.”

The mission has a goal of raising $200 million for St. Jude, including $100 million personally donated by Isaacman.

Shenzhou 12 astronauts Tang Hongbo, Liu Boming, and Nie Haisheng outside their landing capsule Friday. Credit: Xinhua

Three Chinese astronauts landed in the remote Gobi Desert of northwestern China Friday, returning to Earth after a three-month mission on the country’s new Tiangong space station, and ending a historic day in human spaceflight that set a new record with 14 people in low Earth orbit.

With the return of China’s Shenzhou 12 crew Friday, 11 people remained in orbit — seven on the International Space Station and four on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission. The launch of Inspiration4 Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center briefly brought the total number of humans in orbit 14.

The new record of 14 people in orbit is one more than the previous mark of 13, set on multiple occasions since 1995.

The Shenzhou 12 mission descended under parachute to the Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert Friday. Touchdown occurred at 1:34 a.m. EDT (0534 GMT; 1:34 p.m. Beijing time), according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo landed after 92 days in orbit, China’s longest human space mission to date. Shenzhou 12, the first crew mission to China’s Tiangong space station, was a “complete success,” the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement.

Live coverage of China’s Shenzhou 12 mission, a three-month expedition to the Tiangong space station. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

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The first all-civilian, privately-funded crew to reach orbit came through their initial hours in weightless environment of space “healthy, happy and resting comfortably,” SpaceX reported Thursday.

Company founder Elon Musk added: “Just spoke with (Inspiration4) crew. All is well.”

But no immediate word on what they talked about or any details about the progress of the historic mission.

Unlike NASA space flights, in which space-to-ground communications between astronauts and flight controllers are carried out in the open, there has been no public radio traffic with the Inspiration4 crew and no downlinked photographs or video since reaching orbit Wednesday after launch from the Kennedy Space Center.

Artist’s concept of China’s Shenzhou 12 spacecraft undocking from the Tianhe core module of China’s space station. Credit: CCTV

China’s three-man Shenzhou 12 crew floated into their return craft and undocked from the Tiangong space station Wednesday, heading for landing in remote northwestern China to close out a three-month mission, the longest human flight to date in the country’s space program.

As the Shenzhou 12 spacecraft departed the space station, a Chinese ground teams rolled an unpiloted cargo ship to its launch pad at the Wenchang launch base on Hainan Island, China’s southernmost province, for liftoff Monday on a resupply flight to the Tiangong complex.

The Shenzhou 12 crew undocked from Tiangong at 8:56 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0056 GMT Thursday) and backed away from the space station. The spacecraft performed a “radial rendezvous” test, a circumnavigation maneuver to fly the ship from a position in front of the space station to a point below the complex.

The test demonstrated an approach to a different Tiangong docking port, that will be used by future missions to link up with the space station, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Shenzhou 12 halted its radial approach before docking, as planned, then flew away from the station as the three-man crew readied for re-entry and a parachute-assisted landing Friday.

A Falcon 9 rocket streaks into orbit Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center, kicking off the Inspiration4 mission. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography

With the backing of a billionaire businessman, four private citizens blasted off Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a first-of-its-kind fully commercial three-day spaceflight aboard a SpaceX crew capsule, riding to an altitude higher than any person has flown in two decades.

The Inspiration4 mission includes a wealthy entrepreneur with a penchant for aerobatic flying, a science educator with a lifelong ambition to fly in space, a physician assistant who survived childhood cancer, and an Air Force veteran turned data engineer.

A Falcon 9 rocket lit up Florida’s Space Coast with a roaring liftoff from pad 39A at Kennedy at 8:02:56 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0002:56 GMT Thursday). The launch kicked off SpaceX’s fourth-ever crew mission to low Earth orbit, but the first without any NASA astronauts on-board.

Within about a minute, the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 was traveling faster than the speed of sound, trailing a flickering orange flame as nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines powered the launcher through a clear evening sky.

Two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s reusable first stage booster shut down and dropped away to descend to landing on a SpaceX recovery ship positioned downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Moments later, the second stage’s single engine ignited to send the Crew Dragon capsule into orbit.

Photographers visited launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center early Wednesday to set up remote cameras. Photographer Michael Cain captured these views of the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft ahead of liftoff on the Inspiration 4 private crew mission.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

Jared Isaacman, commander of the Inspiration4 mission, trains in a Crew Dragon simulator at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX’s launch of the all-private Inspiration4 crew mission, scheduled as soon as Wednesday night, is an all-commercial affair that leaves NASA largely on the sidelines. And that’s just fine with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

“It’s another opening up of space,” Nelson said Tuesday during the Humans To Mars Summit. “In this particular one, other than the fact that the spacecraft, in this case the Dragon spacecraft, was built under the auspices of NASA because of the safety of astronauts. But other than that … This is SpaceX’s deal.

“NASA is not involved in it because this is a totally commercial operation of which they are not touching or, in this case, docking with the International Space Station,” Nelson said.

Private spaceflight will become the norm, if NASA gets its way. The space agency has turned over astronaut transportation to low Earth orbit to the private sector, through contracts with SpaceX and Boeing, and eventually wants a commercial space station to replace the International Space Station.

“It’s another example of where we’d like to go in low Earth orbit eventually,” Nelson said. “We want to keep the International Space Station going until 2030, and then we want to phase that out. We want commercial operations to take over low Earth orbit. We want them to do the manufacturing. We want them to have their own space station, so that NASA can continue to push outward into the solar system, and beyond.”

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center with the Inspiration4 mission, the first all-private human spaceflight to low Earth orbit. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

A Soyuz rocket takes off Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with 34 OneWeb satellites. Credit: Roscosmos

A day after SpaceX launched 51 Starlink broadband satellites from California, a Russian Soyuz rocket fired into orbit Tuesday from a spaceport halfway around the world, shepherding 34 more satellites for the commercial internet network being constructed by rival OneWeb.

The back-to-back missions continue the rapid deployment of the dueling internet networks, with more Starlink and OneWeb launches scheduled next month.

OneWeb’s launch took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:07:19 p.m. EDT (1807:19 GMT; 11:07:19 p.m. Baikonur time). The 34 satellites rode a Soyuz-2.1b launcher and a Fregat upper stage into orbit.

The kerosene-fueled Soyuz fired away from Baikonur on a northerly heading to reach a 280-mile-high (450-kilometer) polar orbit.

Less than 10 minutes after liftoff, the Soyuz rocket’s third stage shut down and deployed the Fregat upper stage. The Fregat, fed by a mix of storable hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, fired its main engine two times to place the 34 satellite into the targeted orbit, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with 34 OneWeb broadband satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Arianespace’s live video stream begins at approximately 1:55 p.m. EDT (1755 GMT) and is in English. Roscosmos’s live video stream begins at approximately 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) and is in Russian.

Thirty-four OneWeb satellites, mounted on their deployment fixture, are raised onto a Fregat upper stage at the Baikonur Cosmodrome during pre-launch preparations. Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian Soyuz rocket is poised for lift off Tuesday from Kazakhstan with another 34 internet spacecraft for OneWeb, the company’s 10th launch since deployment of the satellite network began in 2019.

Ground crews at the Baikonur Cosmodrome rolled the Soyuz-2.1b rocket to the Site 31 launch complex Saturday. After lifting the rocket vertical, teams moved gantry arms into position around the launcher to complete final pre-flight inspections and other preparations for liftoff.

Launch is set for 2:07:19 p.m. EDT (18:07:19 GMT) Tuesday to carry OneWeb’s next 34 satellites into orbit. A successful launch would expand OneWeb’s fleet to 322 satellites, second in size only to SpaceX’s constellation of Starlink internet satellites.

OneWeb, backed by the British government and the Indian telecom company Bharti Global, plans to launch 648 small internet satellites, including spares, to provide broadband connectivity to customers around the world.

With 322 satellites, OneWeb will near the halfway mark of its fleet deployment.

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An all-civilian, non-astronaut crew, including a childhood cancer survivor, is ready for blastoff this week on a history-making SpaceX flight. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday evening for the first fully commercial, non-government flight to orbit, a charity-driven mission proponents say will open the door for “everyday people” to fly in space.

While billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos made headlines earlier this summer spending a few minutes in weightlessness during up-and-down sub-orbital flights to space, the Inspiration4 crew will spend three days orbiting the Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

And not just any orbit. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will boost the Crew Dragon Resilience into a planned 360-mile-high orbit, 100 miles above the International Space Station, higher than anyone has flown since the final shuttle visit to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.

From that lofty perch, the civilian crew of four will enjoy unrivaled 360-degree views of Earth and deep space through a clear, custom-built dome in the nose of the capsule.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaks into space Monday night in this long exposure photo. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX delivered 51 more Starlink internet spacecraft to orbit Monday night with a successful Falcon 9 rocket launch from California, introducing new inter-satellite optical laser links to improve how the network relays broadband signals around the world.

The launch was the first dedicated Starlink mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, located about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. The successful Starlink flight clears the way for SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket to launch Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the all-civilian Inspiration4 crew mission.

The Falcon 9 rocket deployed the 51 Starlink satellites into an orbit with a tilt angle of 70 degrees to the equator, inaugurating a new orbital “shell” to expand the reach and capacity of the privately-developed internet network.

Amid thick fog, the Falcon 9 rocket lit its nine Merlin 1D engines and lifted off from Space LAunch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg at 8:55:50 p.m. PDT (11:55:50 p.m. EDT) Monday, or 0355:50 GMT Tuesday.

The powerful kerosene-fed engines drove the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket through the soupy fog layer within a few seconds, and the Falcon 9 streaked into a starry sky over California’s Central Coast.



A classified Russian military satellite, possibly designed with a new miniature reconnaissance camera, launched Sept. 9 on a single-core version of the Soyuz rocket.

The Soyuz 2-1v rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia at 2:59 p.m. EDT (1859 GMT), according to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense. Liftoff from Plesetsk occurred at 10:59 p.m. Moscow time.

Powered by a kerosene-fueled NK-33 engine, the rocket headed north over the Arctic Ocean, targeting an orbit flying north-south over Earth’s poles.

The rocket shed its spent first stage and jettisoned its payload shroud after climbing above the discernible atmosphere, leaving the Soyuz second stage to place its military payload into orbit.