These photos and a time lapse video from the European Space Agency chronicle the final preparations for launch of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft from the Guiana Space Center on the second-to-last Ariane 5 rocket.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Ariane 5 rocket with the the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft is buttoned up for launch inside the payload fairing of an Ariane 5 rocket. The illustration on the Ariane 5 payload fairing was the winning submission in a children’s art competition, drawn by eight-year-old Yaryna from Ukraine. Credit:
ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut
The European Space Agency’s $1.7 billion robotic Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission is ready for liftoff Thursday from French Guiana, beginning an eight-year cruise to the solar system’s largest planet before becoming the first-ever spacecraft to orbit one of Jupiter’s moons in the 2030s.
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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket for the ViaSat 3 Americas mission inside the hangar at Launch Complex 39A. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy mission, set for April 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will launch a powerhouse bus-sized broadband satellite for Viasat into a high-altitude circular geostationary orbit, a demanding flight profile that will require disposal of all three of the rocket’s reusable boosters.
The spacecraft for the Japanese-led X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, undergoes acoustic testing in Japan in December 2022. Credit: JAXA
The launch of a Japanese X-ray telescope and robotic lunar lander has been delayed to no earlier than August, and the launch schedule for another Japanese mission to return samples from a moon of Mars is in doubt as engineers investigate the failure of Japan’s first H3 rocket last month.
SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket stand fully stacked at the company’s Starbase launch facility in South Texas. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX said Tuesday it won’t perform a final countdown dress rehearsal this week for the giant new Starship launch vehicle, and could send the rocket — standing nearly 40 stories tall on its Texas launch pad — on an around-the-world test flight as soon as next week.
Watch our live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Intelsat 40e communications satellite, which also hosts NASA’s TEMPO air quality monitoring instrument. Follow us on Twitter.
Artist’s illustration of the TEMPO instrument’s scan of air quality across North America. Credit: NASA
A $210 million NASA mission to improve air pollution monitoring over North America is set to launch Friday with an Intelsat communications satellite blasting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.
A camera on-board NASA’s Orion Spacecraft captured this view of a crescent Earth beyond the lunar horizon on Dec. 5, 2022, when it completed a return flyby of the moon in the final days of the unpiloted Artemis 1 mission. Credit: NASA
NASA announced Monday that former U.S. Navy fighter pilots Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, veteran space station astronaut Christina Koch, and rookie Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will crew the Artemis 2 mission to fly around the far side of the moon as soon as late next year, a test flight that will carry the foursome farther from Earth than any humans in history.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Sunday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: SpaceX
The first 10 spacecraft for a planned U.S. military mega-constellation launched from California Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, setting in place the keystone for a multibillion-dollar network of hundreds of small satellites to improve defenses against hypersonic missiles and other emerging threats.
Israel’s Ofek 13 radar spy satellite lifted off aboard an Israeli-built Shavit 2 launch vehicle. Credit: Israel Ministry of Defense
Israel’s military launched a radar spy satellite March 28 from an air base south of Tel Aviv, adding an all-weather observation sentinel to the country’s fleet of intelligence-gathering spacecraft.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on its launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, awaiting liftoff with the first 10 satellites for the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX aborted a launch attempt Thursday just three seconds before liftoff at the start of the engine ignition sequence, delaying the flight of a Falcon 9 rocket from California with 10 satellites for the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with 10 satellites for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 missile tracking and data relay network. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
This artist’s concept illustrates how the Space Development Agency’s mesh network will detect and track missiles, relay data, and perform navigation and tech demo missions. Credit: Space Development Agency
The U.S. military’s Space Development Agency, established in 2019 to fast-track new national security capabilities in orbit, plans to launch the first 10 satellites for a constellation of hundreds of missile tracking and data relay spacecraft Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California.
A helicopter, part of Russia’s recovery steam, lands near the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan Tuesday. Credit: Roscosmos
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft originally slated to bring home two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut parachuted to a landing in Kazakhstan Tuesday, returning to Earth without a crew due to concerns about overheating following a coolant leak while docked at the International Space Station last year.
Watch our live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink 5-10 mission at 4:01 p.m. EDT (2001 GMT) on March 29 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Follow us on Twitter.
An Electron rocket lifts off Friday with two BlackSky Earth-imaging satellites. Credit: Rocket Lab
Two BlackSky optical Earth-imaging satellites rode an Electron launcher into orbit Friday from New Zealand, while the Electron’s first stage booster gently parachuted into the Pacific Ocean as engineers consider abandoning airborne rocket recovery in favor of ship-based retrieval and reuse.
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