Space News & Blog Articles

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with 51 Starlink internet satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.

A stack of Starlink satellites before a previous launch from Florida. Credit: SpaceX

A batch of 51 Starlink internet spacecraft, debuting new laser inter-satellite links, is set for liftoff Monday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on SpaceX’s first dedicated Starlink mission from the West Coast.

The 51 satellites will begin populating a new shell within SpaceX’s Starlink network, following the completion of the first orbital shell after a series of dedicated launches from Florida over two years between May 2019 and May of this year.

The Starlink satellites launched so far give the network reach to high latitudes, but don’t provide global coverage.

“We’ve completed the first element of our network …which basically gets us to plus or minus 50 degrees, 53 degrees, 55 degrees (latitude),” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, during a panel discussion at the Space Symposium last month.

The next phase of the Starlink program, beginning with Monday’s launch, will expand the coverage to the polar regions.

From left to right: Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, and Hayley Arceneaux aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft Sunday night. Credit: SpaceX

The four civilian fliers who will rocket into orbit this week on the privately-managed Inspiration4 mission took their seats inside a SpaceX crew capsule Sunday night in Florida during a dress rehearsal for launch day.

Hours later, once the crew members cleared the launch pad, SpaceX test-fired the Falcon 9 rocket set to launch the Inspiration4 mission.

The back-to-back milestones came after SpaceX rolled the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule to launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Saturday night. SpaceX erected the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) launcher vertical on the launch pedestal Sunday morning, setting the stage for the crew dress rehearsal later in the day.

The Inspiration4 mission is set to become the first human spaceflight to reach orbit with a crew comprised entirely of private citizens. Every crew to fly in Earth orbit to date has been led by a government-employed astronaut.

In July, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin — founded by billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos — launched all-private crews into space on their own commercial spaceships. But those suborbital missions only reached the edge of space, giving the passengers a few minutes of microgravity and offering brief views of Earth from an altitude of more than 50 miles (80 kilometers).

Credit: SpaceX

The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spaceship chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman for a three-day mission in low Earth orbit arrived at historic launch pad 39A in Florida over the weekend, moving into the starting blocks for liftoff Wednesday night with four civilian passengers.

The two-stage launcher emerged from SpaceX’s hangar at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Saturday night. A transporter ferried the unfueled rocket to the pad along rail tracks, and a hydraulic lift raised the Falcon 9 vertical Sunday morning.

The photos on this page show the launcher departing SpaceX’s hangar Saturday night. There are also views of the Falcon 9 on pad 39A Sunday, including late-night photos of the rocket as a lightning storm raged offshore.

The rollout set the stage for a dress rehearsal with Isaacman and his three crewmates, who will become the first non-government crew to launch into orbit. A test-firing of the Falcon 9 rocket’s nine Merlin main engines is planned early Monday.

The Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon spaceship stand 215 feet (65 meters) tall. The Falcon 9’s reusable first stage is a veteran of two prior launches and landings, each carrying a U.S. military GPS navigation satellite.

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.

Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, and Sian Proctor pose with the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule that will carry them into orbit. Credit: Inspiration4 / John Kraus

SpaceX raised a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule on pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Sunday, kicking off a busy few days before launch of the all-private Inspiration4 crew mission as soon as Wednesday night.

The Falcon 9 launcher rolled out of SpaceX’s hangar at the southern perimeter of pad 39A late Saturday. The rocket rode a transporter up the ramp to the historic seaside launch facility, where a hydraulic lift raised the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) launcher vertical just before 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) Sunday.

The rollout was to be followed by a dress rehearsal Sunday evening with the four private citizens who will ride the Falcon 9 into orbit this week.

The Inspiration4 mission is set to become the first human spaceflight to reach orbit with a crew comprised entirely of private citizens. Every crew to fly in Earth orbit to date has been led by a government-employed astronaut.

In July, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin — founded by billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos — launched all-private crews into space on their own commercial spaceships. But those suborbital missions only reached the edge of space, giving the passengers a few minutes of microgravity and offering brief views of Earth from an altitude of more than 50 miles (80 kilometers).

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Three days after a Russian spacewalk, Japanese space station commander Akihiko Hoshide and Frenchman Thomas Pesquet floated outside for their own excursion Sunday to build a support fixture for a roll-out solar array blanket that will be attached later.

The astronauts also planned to replace a device that measures the strength of the electrical environment around the International Space Station as it interacts with charged particles in the extreme upper atmosphere while streaking through space at nearly five miles per second.

Looking on throughout will be a 3D camera mounted on the space station’s robot arm that will capture high-definition shots of the spacewalk for use in a commercial documentary series — “The ISS Experience” — giving viewers an immersive look at life in orbit. The camera and robot arm will be operated by flight controllers in Houston.

“The procedures are developed in a way where the camera will be completely out of the path of the spacewalkers,” said flight director Ali Boudous. “We made sure that the camera gets some amazing views, however it doesn’t interfere at all with our spacewalk tasks themselves.”

A Long March 3B rocket lifts off with the Chinasat 9B communications satellite. Credit: CASC

A replacement Chinese communications satellite for a craft launched into the wrong orbit four years ago successfully rocketed into space Thursday, just in time to be ready to support 4K and 8K television broadcasts of the Beijing Winter Olympics next year.

The Chinasat 9B communications satellite, also known as Zhongxing 9B, lifted off on top of a Long March 3B rocket at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT) Thursday, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, the lead state-run enterprise in charge of the Chinese space program.

The three-stage Long March 3B rocket arced downrange from the Xichang launch base in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, dropping its four liquid-fueled boosters and first stage over Chinese territory. A second stage and a reignitable cryogenic third stage completed the task of placing the Chinasat 9B spacecraft into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit.

U.S. military tracking data indicated the satellite deployed in an elongated orbit ranging between 128 miles and 22,240 miles (206 and 35,792 kilometers), with an inclination of approximately 24.6 degrees to the equator.

Chinasat 9B, with a launch mass of around 5.5 metric tons (12,000 pounds), unfurled its power-generating solar arrays shortly after separating from the Long March 3B’s third stage, according to CASC.



Firefly Aerospace says the premature shutdown of one of its Alpha rocket’s four main engines caused the launcher to lose control as it reached supersonic speed during a test flight over California last week.

In a statement Sunday, the company released preliminary information from the investigation into the launch accident, and emphasized lessons learned from the mission will boost chances the next test flight will reach orbit.

The first test flight of Firefly’s Alpha launcher Sept. 2 ended in a dramatic orange fireball high above Vandenberg Space Force Base, a military facility on California’s Central Coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The privately-developed Alpha rocket is sized to haul payloads of up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) into a low-altitude orbit, or up to 1,388 pounds (630 kilograms) of payload to a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous polar orbit.

A Chinese Long March 4C rocket lifts off with the Gaofen 5-02 remote sensing satellite. Credit: CASC

China launched an Earth observation satellite on top of a Long March 4C rocket Tuesday to monitor land surfaces, water resources, and air quality.

The Gaofen 5-02 environmental monitoring satellite took off at 0301 GMT Tuesday (11:01 p.m. EDT Monday) from the Taiyuan launch base, a military-run spaceport located in Shanxi province in northern China.

Liftoff occurred at 11:01 a.m. Beijing time.

The three-stage Long March 4C rocket flew south from Taiyuan to deploy the Gaofen 5-02 satellite into a 420-mile-high (680-kilometer) polar sun-synchronous orbit, according to tracking data published by the U.S. military.

Gaofen 5-02 is beginning a planned eight-year mission with a multi-channel optical hyperspectral imaging instrument capable of detecting variations in land cover, such as different types of vegetation and urban growth. The hyperspectral sensor can also resolve water quality.

Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy works outside the International Space Station to electrically connect a new Russian laboratory module to the outpost. This shot was captured by a helmet camera used by crewmate Pyotr Dubrov. Credit: NASA TV

Two Russian spacewalkers connected a new laboratory module to the International Space Station’s power grid Friday, routing and plugging in eight cables to tap into electricity generated by NASA’s solar power system.

Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov ran about an hour behind schedule getting two bundles of cables hooked up between the newly-arrived Nauka lab module and the U.S. segment of the station, prompting Russian flight controllers to defer a few lower-priority tasks.

But the main objective of the spacewalk was accomplished: all eight power cables were successfully connected, along with partial connection of an ethernet cable, tying Nauka into the station’s shared power and internet systems.

“All the connectors were mated correctly,” Russian flight control radioed the spacewalkers after tests confirmed the first set of power cables was working properly.

“Great! Thank you so much for your confirmation,” one of the cosmonauts replied.

The first test flight of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha launch vehicle ended in a fiery explosion. Credit: Gene Blevins / LA Daily News.

The first test flight of Firefly Aerospace’s privately-developed Alpha small satellite launcher ended in a fiery failure soon after liftoff Thursday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The rocket roared away from its pad at Space Launch Complex 2-West at 6:59 p.m. PDT (9:59 p.m. EDT; 0159 GMT) and all appeared to be going well as it climbed into a clear blue sky. The first sign of possible trouble came at about T+1 minute 47 seconds when a launch controller reported Alpha was not yet supersonic, a milestone it was supposed to have reached 40 seconds prior to that. At T+2 minutes 18 seconds the controller advised “vehicle is supersonic”. Shortly there after the rocket appeared to lose control and tumble for several seconds before exploding, approximately 2 minutes 29 seconds after launch.

Firefly Aerospace confirmed the mishap in a tweet: “Alpha experienced an anomaly during first stage ascent that resulted in the loss of the vehicle. As we gather more information, additional details will be provided.”

It was the inaugral flight for the two-stage Alpha rocket, which is designed to loft up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) into a low-altitude orbit, or up to 1,388 pounds (630 kilograms) of payload to a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous polar orbit.

The kerosene-fueled rocket is one of many privately-developed small satellite launchers new to the market. It is powered by four Reaver engines on the first stage which generate more than 165,000 pounds of thrust at maximum power, and a Lightning engine on the second stage will produces more than 15,000 pounds of thrust.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The live webcast of Firefly’s first launch attempt, provided by Everyday Astronaut, is set to begin one hour before launch. If launch remains set for 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT; 0100 GMT), the live stream will begin at 5 p.m. PDT (8 p.m. EDT; 0000 GMT).



Video credit: Everyday Astronaut / Firefly Aerospace

The first test flight of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha launch vehicle could take off as soon as Thursday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The four-hour launch window opens at 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) Thursday, or 0100 GMT Friday. There is a 100% chance of acceptable weather conditions during the launch window, according to the weather team at Vandenberg, but conditions could be foggy.

Commander Jared Isaacman and crewmates Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski pose with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft Aug. 30 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: SpaceX / Inspiration4

The four private citizens who will fly into orbit later this month on a chartered SpaceX capsule visited their spaceship at Cape Canaveral this week for fit checks.

On Wednesday, officials released the first pictures of the cupola window attached to the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft, a new addition that will offer the crew expansive views of planet Earth from an altitude of more than 350 miles.

The four-person crew, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, put on their SpaceX-made flight suits and strapped into the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft Monday inside SpaceX’s Dragon processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The mission is called Inspiration4, and it will be the first fully commercial human spaceflight to orbit Earth, without a professional government-employed astronaut on-board. The mission is the centerpiece of a charity-focused project designed in part to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a nonprofit institution devoted to treating children with cancer and other pediatric diseases.

The launch, set for Sept. 15 on a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A, is SpaceX’s next mission flying from Florida’s Space Coast.

In this file photo from 2017, several Praxair tanker trucks deliver liquid oxygen to launch pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The effects of a nationwide liquid oxygen shortage caused by the recent spike in hospitalized coronavirus patients has already delayed the launch of a Landsat imaging satellite by a week, and threatens to impact more missions from launch sites in Florida and California.

NASA said last week that the launch of the Landsat 9 satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California would be delayed one week until no earlier than Sept. 23 due to a lack of liquid nitrogen at the military base. ULA uses gaseous nitrogen, which is converted from liquid nitrogen, for purges during testing and countdown operations.

The space agency said pandemic demands for medical liquid oxygen impacted the delivery of liquid nitrogen to Vandenberg.

Del Jenstrom, NASA’s Landsat 9 project manager, said Tuesday the liquid oxygen crunch spilled over to affect liquid nitrogen deliveries as tanker trucks were repurposed to carry oxygen to medical facilities treating COVID-19 patients.

The Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees a facility at Vandenberg that converts liquid nitrogen into gaseous nitrogen, determined last week that the military base’s nitrogen supply was “critically low” and insufficient to support pre-launch testing of the Atlas 5 rocket for the Landsat 9 mission.

In this July 28 photo, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson views the Space Launch System for the Artemis 1 mission inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The earliest NASA’s first Space Launch System moon rocket could roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to its seaside launch complex in Florida is in late November, officials told Spaceflight Now, leaving little time to conduct a critical fueling test, roll the rocket back into the VAB for final closeouts, then return to the pad for liftoff before the end of the year.

Stacking and testing of the SLS heavy-lift rocket has taken longer than NASA’s best-case projections earlier this year. But that’s not unexpected for the first time teams have assembled the powerful new launch vehicle inside the VAB at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

“It’s gone well, in my opinion, for first-time operations,” said Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager for NASA’s exploration ground systems program, in a recent interview with Spaceflight Now. “Everything is new for us, but in general, things have gone well.”

Lanham said NASA, supported by ground systems contractor Jacobs, intentionally delayed stacking of some elements of the Space Launch System this summer to complete some “higher-priority” work in the critical path for the first unpiloted SLS test flight, which NASA calls Artemis 1.

The higher-priority tasks included an initial power up of the SLS core stage avionics, and loading of flight software into the rocket’s computer system. The work also involved checkouts of an environmental control system before power-up of the rocket.

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule approaches the International Space Station Monday. Credit: Thomas Pesquet/ESA/NASA

Closing out a 31-hour flight from a launch pad in Florida, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule autonomously docked with the International Space Station Monday, delivering experiments, supplies, and fresh food to the complex.

The automated cargo freighter linked up with the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT), making contact with the outpost as it sailed 264 miles (424 kilometers) over Western Australia.

A few minutes later, the cargo ship retracted its docking ring, allowing 12 hooks to drive closed, creating a firm mechanical connection between the Dragon and the space station.

“Hard capture complete, and another excellent Dragon docking complete,” radioed Leslie Ringo, spacecraft communicator at NASA’s mission control in Houston.

“Congratulations to NASA and the SpaceX teams, and many thanks. No one has ever sent me a spaceship for my birthday before. I appreciate it,” replied astronaut Megan McArthur from the space station.

Astra’s Rocket 3.3 tilts before flying sideways after liftoff from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska. Credit: Astra

Astra’s small satellite launcher suffered an engine failure just after liftoff from Alaska Saturday, causing the rocket to tilt sideways before the booster recovered and climbed into the upper atmosphere. The rocket later veered from its flight corridor, and the range safety officer issued a flight termination command before the mission reached orbit.

The 43-foot-tall (13-meter) rocket, modest by orbital launch vehicle standards, took off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, at 6:35 p.m. EDT (1:35 p.m. Alaska time; 2235 GMT) Saturday.

Astra aborted a launch attempt Friday just after ignition of the rocket’s five kerosene-fueled Delphin main engines.

The U.S. Space Force contracted Astra for the test flight Saturday. The military paid for the mission to carry a “non-deployable” payload comprising sensors and instruments to measure the environment satellites would encounter during an Astra launch.

“We regret that we were unable to accomplish all mission objectives for the U.S. Space Force; however, we captured a tremendous amount of data from this test flight,” said Chris Kemp, founder, chairman and CEO of Astra, in a statement. “We will incorporate learnings from this test into future launch vehicles, including LV0007, which is currently in production.”

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket early Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography

SpaceX launched a Dragon cargo capsule from Florida on a thundering predawn launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, kicking off the company’s 23rd commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station.

The two-stage Falcon 9 launcher, standing 215 feet (65 meters) tall, roared to life and fired away from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:14:49 a.m. EDT (0714:49 GMT), an instantaneous launch opportunity set by the moment Earth’s rotation brought the spaceport under the space station’s orbital plane.

A launch attempt Saturday morning was scrubbed due to stormy weather at the space center.

Nine Merlin 1D main engines, each consuming kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants, powered the rocket northeast from Florida’s Space Coast with 1.7 million pounds of thrust.

After climbing into a moonlit sky, the Falcon 9’s first stage shut down and separated, allowing the rocket’s single engine second stage to finish the job of placing the Cargo Dragon capsule into orbit.

Stormy weather at the Kennedy Space Center prevented launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday. Credit: NASA / Spaceflight Now

Thunderstorms moving onshore at Cape Canaveral prevented SpaceX from launching a Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday, forcing a one-day delay to the start of the company’s 23rd resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Forecasters predicted iffy weather for Saturday’s predawn launch attempt, and the weather outlook proved accurate as rain showers and storms approached the Florida spaceport from the Atlantic Ocean.

The storms violated multiple launch weather constraints — all associated with the threat of lightning — forcing SpaceX to call off the launch attempt with less than nine minutes left in the countdown.

Officials hoped to launch the 215-foot-tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 rocket at 3:37 a.m. EDT (0737 GMT) Saturday. Instead, SpaceX will try again at 3:14 a.m. EDT (0714 GMT) Sunday to launch the automated cargo mission to the space station.

Forecasters predict slightly better weather for Sunday’s launch opportunity. Assuming the Falcon 9 rocket and Cargo Dragon capsule get off the ground Sunday, the supply ship is scheduled to dock with the space station’s Harmony module at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) Monday with 4,866 pounds (2,207 kilograms) of experiments, crew provisions, and spare parts.